“What about Dan, your husband? Did the town folks—”
“Dan has nothing to do with it.” But the tightness in her voice told Jess something else. Her standing in the Willow Flat community had been based on her actions, not Dan’s. For that, Jess was glad. She’d built a life here. He wanted to leave her that.
Ellen studied the plate of food on her lap. Two hard-cooked eggs, cut into quarters. Slices of red, juicy tomatoes, a wedge of cheese and two pieces of her day-old brown bread, thickly buttered.
“Too hot in the kitchen to cook,” Jess muttered.
“I see you found my tomato vines.” In a soft voice she added, “I am proud of my tomatoes.”
“Irrigated with wash water, like you said. At least that’s what I think I used.”
Ellen laughed. “They’ll probably taste like soap.”
“They’ll taste like tomatoes.”
Her smile faded. “I try not to think about the way of nature. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Mostly he taketh away. He must have missed my tomatoes.” She popped a section of boiled egg into her mouth.
“You sound like you’ve picked a good quarrel with the Lord.”
“I am plenty mad at him at present. I will still be mad at him when they lay me in my grave.”
Jess knew better than to pursue the matter further; he’d get her riled up and she’d be hard to handle, riled up. He studied the dark shadows beneath her eyes, her work-worn hands, the pulse throbbing at the curve of her throat. Ellen O’Brian was a fighter. He had to admire that.
But she wasn’t going to win. A sour taste rose in his mouth and he swallowed hard. “About this social tomorrow…”
“What about it?” she asked over a mouthful of tomatoes. “It’s the Fourth of July, always a big town wingding. I never miss it.”
“Think you could sit a horse?”
Her face changed. “Guess I’ll have to if I want to go.”
“There’s a doctor in town, right?”
“Yes, my uncle, Dr. James Callahan. Why? Are you ailing?”
“Thought he might put a plaster on your broken leg. A plaster cast is easier to walk around on than a splinted limb.”
Her face lit up as if somebody had turned up a lamp flame inside her. “Then maybe I could even join in the dancing. That’s the best part of the social.”
“Maybe. First have to figure out how to get you there.” He’d think it over later, after she went to bed. “You got something else needs doing tonight?”
“Boiling up my cake frosting. Just butter and sugar and some cold coffee. They call it Araby icing. Takes exactly seven minutes from start to finish, but you have to keep stirring it. Do you think you could…?”
“Thought you’d never ask,” Jess said dryly.
“Thought I’d let you wear my apron again, too,” she said with a laugh.
“Thanks.”
“Mr. Flint?”
“Yes, Mrs. O’Brian?”
“Think you could also manage to iron my clean petticoat? The one you washed this morning?”
“I guess if you can ride a horse with your leg splinted, I can figure out how to iron your petticoat.”
“Mr. Flint?” she said again. This time her blue eyes pinned him where he stood.
“Yes, Mrs. O’Brian?”
“There’s some reason why you’re here. I want to know what it is.”
Jess looked away toward the purpling sky. “First off, it’s plain you need help. You can’t keep up the chores with a broken leg.”
She nodded, but when he turned his head toward her she sought his gaze again. “And second?”
“Second…” He drew in a full breath and exhaled. “Maybe I’m…looking for something.”
The instant the words were out he knew he’d said too much. The trick to lying was to stick close to the truth, up to a point. But she was the kind of woman who looked beneath the surface of things. Sooner or later, she’d smell him out.
“Looking for what?”
“Looking for…maybe some place to catch my breath for a while. Maybe a place that needs me.” Both statements were true; he just wasn’t telling her all of it.
And Lord, deep down he hoped she never found out the rest.
Chapter Seven
Exhausted from climbing the stairs step by agonizingly slow step, Ellen tottered into her blue-wallpapered bedroom, plopped down on the bed and began unbuttoning her shirt. Her broken leg ached. Her hands shook with fatigue. In the summer heat, just moving from the stove to the kitchen table made her pant with effort.
An hour ago she’d given up and instructed Mr. Flint in making her Araby frosting. Unless she was mistaken, he had actually enjoyed it, especially licking the spoon.
Raising her arms and twisting awkwardly, she managed to remove her skirt, then her petticoat and camisole. Thank goodness she hadn’t worn her corset. But if she attended the social, she’d have to wear it. Respectable women just didn’t dispense with proper undergarments.
She groaned aloud. Another reason not to attend.
She moved laboriously to the window, opened it as wide as it would go and drank in the warm night air. It was still light out, yet it must be near nine; she could hear the raggedy old rooster herding his harem of squawking hens onto their roosts for the night. The clucking noises finally subsided, and then she heard a voice floating up in the quiet air.
She couldn’t make out the words, but the timbre of his voice and the slow, meandering tune stirred something inside her. Loneliness. And an odd yearning. She preferred lively music, fiddle music played fast. Otherwise, she sank into sadness and it took a day or two to work herself out of it.
She wouldn’t listen, she decided. Flopping down on top of the sheet, she closed her eyes and tried to blot out his voice.
“‘Been runnin’ all my life, That’s why I have no wife. Been near enough to hell to smell the smoke….’”
The song made her hurt inside. Made her think about the path she’d set out for herself and the long uphill pull it was turning out to be. Dan would be proud of her, provided she lived long enough to see him again. Each day that passed, she grew more respectable, and more weary, and his memory grew more faded. Sometimes she couldn’t recall his features clearly, as if he were dead and buried. Still, was he not her husband? Had she not vowed to cleave to him until death?
He used to be the most important person in her life, but lately large chunks of time passed when she didn’t think of him at all. Instead, she focused on milking Florence and setting broody hens, plowing the cornfield, planting alfalfa, wrestling shocks of hay into the barn. So many, many things that had less and less to do with Dan as time dragged by.
“‘Been ridin’ through this land, for another cowboy’s brand, and now I’m just an old man goin’ broke….’”
“I wish to God he’d stop singing!” she breathed.
Then the image of Mr. Flint swathed in her ruffled white apron popped into her mind. She saw him bent over the double boiler, stirring lazy figure eights in the bubbling sugar mixture with a wooden spoon, swirling his forefinger in the frosting bowl, grinning like a mischievous boy. Now she pictured him on her front porch, sprawled in the rocker, singing to the fat, gold summer moon.
The man was dangerous. She sensed it as clearly as if he’d said so outright. He wanted something. Needed something from her.
Ellen let a soft groan escape. She didn’t want to admit she was both wary and intrigued by him. And right now, she needed something from him—his legs, and the strong arms of a hired hand.
She had no choice right now but to play the game, use the man for her purposes and hope her leg healed before he got around to his purpose.
She rested one hand on her midriff, felt her indrawn breath lift her flesh, then settle it, like the rising and falling of the sea tide. It wouldn’t be too difficult to have him around for a short while. Despite the hard edge she sensed about the man, she rather liked him.
When Ellen stepped out t
he back door on Sunday morning, Jess blinked and took a second look, and then a third. She looked like a slice of summer sunshine in a flowered yellow dress made of some soft-looking fabric that hugged her bosom, nipped in at her waist and flared over her hips with just the right amount of fullness. His mouth went dry. The wide-brimmed straw hat, trimmed with yellow ribbon, hid her face.
She limped toward him using the crutch he’d made, keeping her eyes on the ground. Her cheeks reddened with the effort of moving.
“Good morning,” he called over a catch in his throat. “Wait there.” He led the big plow horse closer to her.
“Good morning.” Her smile told him everything. She’d slept well, eaten the breakfast he’d left for her, and was itching to get the cake to her July social. His cake. If it won a prize, he wanted some of the glory.
“Pretty dress,” he said. He gave her a slow once-over, from the toes of her black leather lace-ups to the top of her head, where she’d pinned the straw hat at a rakish angle. “Makes you look real…” he searched for a word that wouldn’t put her in a huff “…womanly.”
She flashed him her no-nonsense look. “Since I am female, that is not surprising.” Her voice sounded frosty as a December night.
Jess swallowed a chuckle. She was female and then some. That too-big man’s shirt she favored sure hid her assets under a proverbial bushel. Maybe that’s why she wore it. Ellen O’Brian seemed unaware of how strikingly handsome she was. Not delicate. Not just pretty, with puffed out skirts and ruffles on her petticoat, but downright beautiful.
As a matter of fact, everything about this woman was surprising. Danny boy, what a goddam fool you are.
She stood near the horse’s head, breathing hard from her exertion. “How am I going to mount?”
“I’ll lift you up. You can carry the cake tin on your lap.”
She nodded once and faced him. Carefully he closed his hands around her waist and instantly felt the rigid corset stays under her dress. How the devil had she managed to lace it up by herself? Or maybe it opened in the front? The picture that rose in his mind made him swallow and look away.
Ellen caught her bottom lip between her teeth as her body was lifted off the ground and settled sideways on Tiny’s broad back. Her bottom was cushioned by folded blankets, but her splinted leg stuck straight out.
“Hold on, now.” Jess handed her the covered cake tin, then mounted behind her and slung her crutch alongside, like a rifle scabbard. He lifted the reins. “Gee-yap.”
Tiny took a step forward, and Ellen’s stiffly upright body swayed toward him. He knew she wouldn’t fall off; he had one arm across her middle, the other, holding the reins, almost touching her rigid back. He concentrated on loosening his hold, and clicked his tongue at the horse.
The animal’s lumbering, uneven gait unbalanced her again. Her shoulder pushed against his chest. Instantly she straightened, but Tiny’s next step rocked her against Jess once more.
This time he brought his palm to her shoulder and held her immobile. He kept his hand in place long enough to get his idea across, and after a moment she stopped trying to sit up straight and let herself lean sideways against him.
“Good girl,” he murmured. “Safer this way.” He bent his head, avoiding her hat brim, and inhaled deeply. The scent of her hair reminded him of flowers. Sweet ones.
“I should think it would be less safe,” she said in a crisp voice.
Jess chuckled. “I was thinking of stability. Staying seated on the horse. You…” he paused to glance down at her chin, just visible under the straw bonnet “…were thinking of something else?”
She made no answer, and when she tried to lean away from him he touched her shoulder once more. “Relax, Mrs. O’Brian. You’re a married woman.”
“Exactly,” she snapped. “Keep that in mind.”
“Oh, I keep it in mind, all right. Fact is, it’s occupying more of my attention than I’d bargained for.”
“Just how do you mean that?”
Now he detected an icy edge to her tone. She sure didn’t mince words. Nor did she shy away from asking direct questions, especially ones he wasn’t prepared to answer.
“I mean I am aware of your marital status.” He did not add that he tried hard not to think about it.
She said nothing for at least a mile, and when she did speak, the words punched into his gut like a barbwire belt.
“You have a sly, silky-tongued way about you, Mr. Flint. I wonder that you are not in some way on the shady side of the law.”
There was a long silence while another mile slipped past.
“If you must know,” Jess said at last, “I cheat at cards. You found me out without playing a single hand.”
Another stretch of quiet ensued.
“That,” she finally said in a schoolteachery voice, “is because I cheat at cards myself.”
“You’re lying,” Jess said softly.
She tipped her head and sent him a penetrating look. “So are you.”
Her statement shoved him into the barbwire again. Before he could regroup, they rounded a bend and the town came into view. Just one main street, with false-fronted wooden buildings painted a uniform blinding white; a grassy, tree-covered square across from the redbrick courthouse; side streets with pretty gardens fronting clapboard houses. Jess tightened his lips. It was the kind of place he no longer belonged in.
Within minutes a gaggle of chattering children in pinafores and overalls surrounded the big plow horse.
“Miss Ellen!”
“Tiny!”
The tribe of youngsters escorted them like royalty into Willow Flat, population 1,734.
“Looks like we’ll have to continue this conversation later,” he murmured.
She lifted her head and sent a bolt of blue-eyed lightning straight into his eyes. “We most certainly will.”
Doc Callahan wrapped the wet plaster and gauze cast around his niece’s broken leg, patted her shoulder when it was over and offered her a peppermint stick. “Should be walkin’ on it in about three weeks, Ellen. You just relax and enjoy the time off.”
“Three weeks!”
The gray-bearded physician inclined his head. “Yup. Could be worse. The splint helped, and that crutch, too. That hired man of yours has a mighty good doctoring instinct. You be sure to tell him that.”
She would tell him no such thing. Jess Flint was puffed up enough as it was over “his” cake and “his” Araby frosting. She sniffed. The man hadn’t even known how to grease a cake pan when he started. Men could be so…so territorial at times.
At other times, the human male was a complete mystery. Dan, for instance. Even Uncle James. She knew he was lonely. And she knew he had loved Iona Everett since the first day he came to town. Now that she’d been widowed, why hadn’t he spoken for her?
Jess Flint was a mystery as well. Something about him drew her, stirred her nerves into spaghetti, and at the same time warned her to keep her distance.
Despite the awkwardness of the new plaster cast, she made her way out of her uncle’s office and down the board sidewalk with considerably more ease than before. She still needed the crutch for balance while she hobbled along, but her whole body felt lighter.
Maybe it was wearing a dress again. She didn’t do it very often. She wondered suddenly why she didn’t; it surely did lift her spirits.
When she reached the grassy picnic area, Jess announced that he had taken “his” cake over to the dessert table; all she had to do was relax and enjoy herself, like Doc said.
Ellen bit back a laugh. “In that case, I’ll have a great big plate of potato salad and a cool glass of lemonade with the church ladies, over there under the shady oak tree.” Lord, it would be heavenly to eat something she herself hadn’t grown, or cooked, or both.
She liked potato salad so much she wouldn’t mind listening to the gossipy Presbyterian women. As usual, they would talk-talk-talk, and she would eat.
“…And,” Caroline Svensen added in an
undertone, “I heard later that she was…”
Six bonneted heads bent forward as the mercantile owner’s wife lowered her voice. Ellen, now the seventh lady in the circle of discreetly covered petticoats and dress-up shoes, sat unmoving on the warm grass, her gaze on Caroline but her fork making its way back and forth from her plate to her mouth. She didn’t care who had promised or betrayed or compromised whom; she wanted to enjoy the heaping plate Emma Knowles had brought her.
“You’ll pop your buttons,” the sprightly older woman had announced. “Don’t see how a body can eat like that and stay so skinny.”
It was easy, Ellen thought. She feasted only twice a year, at Easter and the Fourth of July. The rest of the time her suppers were meatless and meager. Once in a while Cy Gundersen from the neighboring farm sent over a ham he’d smoked in his hollowed-out cypress stump. But Cy butchered only once a year. She wondered suddenly if Jess liked bacon.
So what if he did? a voice countered. He’d be around just two, maybe three weeks, to help with the chores until she could manage alone. Then he would be gone.
Caroline’s nasal voice rose. “Why, of course she didn’t!”
The six bonnets drew back like the unfolding petals of a daisy.
“But why not?” someone ventured.
“It just isn’t done, Millie. My goodness, you’d think you never…”
The low buzzing of ladies’ voices resumed, and Ellen devoured another bite of potato salad. Oh, it was heavenly to be part of this circle. To be accepted by the townspeople despite the behavior of her father when he was alive. And didn’t the grass smell sweet today? And the pine trees…
She tipped her head up to feel the sun on her face, and spied Jess casually leaning against a tree, watching a game of horseshoes. A ringer clanged, and he looked up, catching her gaze across the wide expanse of lawn. Without altering his stance, he inclined his head. He didn’t smile at her like the other men did. Jess wasn’t a smiling sort of man. But he certainly looked his fill.
“…don’t you think, Ellen?” Millie Shonski peered at her with narrowed brown eyes. “Ellen?”
Ellen wrenched her attention back to the ladies’ circle, aware of an insistent, hungry clenching in her lower belly. Probably too much potato salad.
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