Finally, Andi spoke.
"Sam Eakin asked me to marry him."
She handed the last plate into Jesse's waiting dishtowel. He stared at the plate for a few seconds before rubbing it dry.
"What did you say?"
Andrea gaped at him. "What did I say? What do you think I said?"
He chanced a look up at her. Tendrils of her ebony hair lay damply against her skin in the evening heat. Wispy curls sprang up at nape and temple and beads of moisture dotted her upper lip. Despite the heat, she smelled of vanilla and soap, and a sweetness that belonged only to her.
"Well," he answered, "from the way Sam lit out of here like his tail had been singed, nearly forgetting Gregory in the process, I suppose the answer was no."
She continued to stare at him, one soapy hand braced on her aproned hip. "Most certainly, no."
Her eyes were dark with some emotion—hurt or maybe disappointment.
"You don't even sound surprised that he'd ask," she said.
"These are hard times—"
"That's what he said."
"A war does things to people, Andi. Makes them hungry for things they're not sure will be there tomorrow. You could do worse."
She blinked. "Are you implying he was desperate enough to ask me after one innocent supper?"
"Hardly." He settled the flowered-painted china plate he was holding precisely atop the stack of others and considered his answer carefully before speaking.
"You're a beautiful woman, Andi. You're alone, and pretty damn vulnerable. You need a husband and a father for your child. And," he added with a glimmer of a smile, "you bake a mean blackberry pie. Any man with half a brain would ask."
Her lips parted and she found she couldn't drag her gaze from his. She wondered if he could hear the heartbeat roaring in her ears. "Any man?"
He dried his hands on the towel and tossed it on the counter. "Any man with half a brain."
Andrea stared at him for a full five seconds before plunging her hands back in the water to feel for the last of the silverware. Anything to distract her from the heat creeping through her.
Jesse stood with his back to her, contemplating the darkness beyond the kitchen window. The crickets outside marked the passing seconds with their churring sound and somewhere nearby, a barn owl screeched into the night.
"Silas and I are going to start on the fences in the north pasture tomorrow."
The rag in Andrea's hands stilled on the forks she was washing. "Oh? Will you need some help?"
He gave her a strange look, then shook his head. Walking slowly to the door, he opened it on its squeaky hinge. "I'll, uh, be up and out early. Don't bother to get up. I'll fix my own breakfast."
"But I can—"
The door closed firmly behind him.
"—make it for you," she finished in a small voice. Leaning on the counter with both hands, she stared at her reflection in the window, Jesse's words flowing through her like a hot summer wind.
You're a beautiful woman, Andi. You need a husband... father for your child.
She closed her eyes and saw the strain etched on his face, the hint of regret filling his eyes.
Any man with half a brain...
"Damn you Jesse," she cursed aloud, balling her fist on the wooden counter. "Why can't you see what's right in front of you? Why can't you see that I love you? That I always have and always will."
Her mother had always said, "If you don't go after what you want, you'll end up sipping sorrow with a teaspoon." Well, she was tired of paying for the mistakes fate had handed her. Tired of relinquishing control of her own destiny. Fate had stolen Jesse away from her once. If the kiss they'd shared last night had proved anything, it had proved that Jesse still cared for her. Despite what he thought he felt.
All she had to do, Andrea thought, untying the apron at her back, was to make him believe it himself.
Chapter 12
She was killing him.
Jesse clamped five more roofing nails between his teeth and shoved the shingle into place on the barn roof.
Day in, day out, whenever he turned around, there Andi was, looking... well, the way she looked and doing things for him he had no business expecting and sure as hell didn't deserve. Every time he turned around, she was there, smiling at him, baking his favorite pie or meal, putting those damn, sweet-smelling roses all over his room.
Three weeks had passed since that disastrous dinner with Sam. Three weeks during which she'd managed to shut down every mangled attempt he'd made to steer her toward an eligible man. Calvin Weeks had "happened" by the next Sunday on the lame excuse of talking corn cribs and fodder with Jesse. Dressed in his Sunday best, with his hair slicked back with hands full of smelly tonic, Calvin had also, incidentally, brought along a bouquet of posies for Andrea which—with pleasant if puzzled thank you—she arranged in a glass vase, then left the two men to their talk of the animal feed market.
Calvin hadn't stayed for supper.
No, Andrea made it so plain she wasn't interested, not one of the men he'd steered toward her had dared even bring up the subject of the future. Not even the not-so-bad-looking beekeeper, Elias Mudrow, from the other side of the county, who'd come sniffing around her in town with honey under his fingernails and sparking on his mind.
Unfortunately, the beekeeper had more stock than charm. Mudrow had wound up with the honey-comb he'd tried to woo her with perched on his head.
The thought began to creep into Jesse's mind that this whole covert plan of his to find her a husband was fatally flawed from the get go.
He drove the nail home with two even strokes, spit another nail from his mouth, and pounded it in. The September sun poured over him on the shadeless roof. He welcomed the muggy heat. Maybe he could sweat out the tension that had settled between his shoulder blades like a fist.
Silas's hammer echoed the rhythm of his own from the other side of the roof. Giving the shingle a testing jiggle, Jesse reached for the next, his gaze drawn inexorably to the road which he'd been watching for the last hour, waiting for her return. She and Etta had gone to town in the buggy to do some Saturday shopping. Little Zach went along for the ride.
He pounded in another nail. He was worried for no good reason. Two women were safe enough, going the short distance between here and town, he told himself. Weren't they?
Then he thought of how she'd looked when she left—in that pretty midnight blue gown with all those rouches and tucks emphasizing the fullness of her breasts and the regained trimness of her waist. She'd worn that little navy straw hat with a cluster of fresh, bloodred roses tied to the brim, the only color in her outfit save her radiant skin, glowing with sunshine.
His fist tightened around his hammer. She'd looked, as a matter of fact, edible.
Tossing off his shirt, he glanced at the road again, imagining all the men in town that would be ogling her as if she—
That's right, Winslow, you dimwit. That's just what you wanted, isn't it?
Isn't it?
Maybe without him to get in the way, she'd find a man all on her own. Some nice farmer at the Feed and Grain, or maybe a shopkeeper, some nice steady sort who—
"Lookin' down that road won't bring her home any quicker," Silas observed with a chuckle from above him.
Jesse glared up where the black man straddled the barn's peaked roof. "I wasn't looking."
Silas smiled mildly. "An' cows give sarsaparilla." He slid gingerly down the slope on Jesse's side of the roof. "Need a hand?"
Jesse frowned. "No. You just go work on your side and I'll finish mine."
He shrugged good-humoredly. "My side's done, boss." He picked up a shingle and started in where Jesse had left off.
"Well, if you're so damned efficient, maybe you should just finish the roof."
Silas' eyebrows went up with amusement. "Whatever you say, boss."
"Will you stop calling me that!"
"Oooh-ee—" Silas muttered with a grin. "Who licked the red off your candy?"
"Nobody," Jesse grumbled, picking up another shingle. "And what if I was watching for her?"
"Ain't no crime in it if you was." Silas buried the nail in the shake shingle with one clean blow and set the next. Jesse handed him a shingle from the shrinking pile.
"I'm responsible for her, after all."
"Uh-huh."
"I mean, she is my sister-in-law."
"That a fact. Almost blood."
Jesse shot a look at him. "Not blood."
Silas grinned. "Oh no, suh. Not blood. Wouldn't do to have the woman you's lookin' at that way be blood."
"No," he answered distractedly, then realized what he'd said. "I mean—No! That's not what I mean at all."
A laugh rumbled through Silas.
"Oh, for crying out—" Jesse tossed the hammer down and it bounced over his knee and down the slope. Jesse tried to catch it, but it was no use. The hammer plunged off the side and hit the ground with a thud.
"Oh, hell." He looked up to find Silas grinning at him. "Well, what are you looking at?"
Silas wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his wrist. "I reckon I's lookin' at a man who don't know if'n he's comin' or goin'."
Jesse slumped to a sitting position, drawing his knees up to brace his forearms across them. "I'm going. And as soon as I can."
"Soon as you find Miss Andi a man, you mean."
Jesse shot a look at him, dismayed that he'd been so transparent. "Well, what am I supposed to do? Leave her alone here?"
"Not what I'd do," Silas muttered, more to himself than to Jesse.
"Yeah, well... not what I'd do either. So you see my dilemma. Anyway, it's not as simple as that."
Silas shrugged, fitting another slat of wood into place. "I reckon not."
"She's mortgaged up to here"—Jesse sliced his hand across his nose—"and that overstuffed banker, Ethan Bridges, would steal the roof from over her and Zachary's head faster than you can say 'land-grabber.' Not to mention the fact that a woman alone in these times is about as safe as a lit match in an ordinance stockroom."
Silas gave him an unreadable look. "Shingle."
"Huh?"
"Shingle," Silas requested, holding out one hand.
"Oh, yeah." He handed him the slat of wood. "I mean my only hope is to find some man willing to take on the responsibility of a woman with a young child."
"If," Silas pointed out, "that woman be willin' to look further than her own backyard... or barn roof."
"Andi knows I'm going."
"Maybe, but she be a woman first, logical next."
"You're wrong," he said shaking his head. "She loved my brother. Friendship is all she feels for me. Maybe she's glad for the company. She's comfortable with this arrangement. But that won't always be enough for her. She'll want more."
"'More' you don't got?" Silas stared at him.
"That's right."
"'Cause o' the farm?"
Jesse heaved an exasperated sigh, tired of trying to explain himself. "Because I can't give her what she wants. Or deserves."
Heat glistened on Silas' forehead, and his black eyes seemed to pierce into Jesse's. "That ain't what it looks like from here. I seen you with that boy—holdin' him, playin' with him when Miss Andi's too tired. You's almost like a daddy to him already. An' the way Miss Andi looks at you? Why, I reckon she'd walk to the moon for you, if'n you wanted her to. If you axted me—"
"Nobody asked you," Jesse snapped. Scowling, he shoved to his feet on the slanted roof. "I'm going to go cut some more shingles. We're running low—"
Jesse fell silent at the heart-stopping sight of a plume of black smoke rising on the horizon to the east. "What the—?"
Silas followed his gaze, getting slowly to his feet. "Jesus, God," he whispered.
Jesse's eyes widened. From their vantage point, they were too far to see the fire's origins. But he knew only one farm lay in that direction. "Isn't that—?"
"—the Rafferty place," Silas finished, real fear hitching his voice.
And almost before the words were out, both men were scrambling down the steep pitch of the roof to the ladder poised against the barn.
Once down, they raced into the paddock where Rabble and the two mules had been peacefully dozing in the late-afternoon sun. Jesse grabbed the rifle he'd left leaning against the barn and handful of worn manilla rope, then vaulted over the three-rail fence. The appaloosa reared its head but allowed Jesse to thread the lead to the rope halter around its head.
"Can you catch a mule?" he shouted to Silas as he swung up on Rabble's bare back with Mahkwi nipping at the horse's nervous heels.
"I reckon I will," he snapped, waving his arms at the brownish gray mule who'd already decided it didn't want to be caught. "You go'on. I be right behind you."
Jesse yanked the rope to the right and eased the gelding through the gate. Silas' voice stopped him before he could wheel away.
"Jesse!" Silas called.
He turned, holding back the prancing animal.
"Be careful."
Jesse nodded and dug his heels into Rabble's flanks. With Mahkwi right beside him, he took off at a gallop for the Rafferty's place with a feeling of impending doom.
He spotted the cloud of dust first, then the thunder of galloping horses. The riders passed him a half-mile to the south. Eight to ten men, as near as he could make them out, wearing hoods and riding hard. The cloud of red summer dust dissipated behind them like a ghostly veil, unlike the black cloud rising farther to the east.
Bastards! he thought, curbing the impulse to track the cowards down while he had them in his sights. But the smoke in the distance left him no choice. He'd worry about the raiders later.
Rabble's hooves beat a thudding tattoo across the land as they tore toward Rafferty's. Cornfields sped past, the low branches of a willow stung his face as he cut across a nearly dried-up creek on the edge of Isabelle and John's property. Why hadn't they rung the bell? That signal would have every farmer within hearing come running.
Jesse's heart pounded and a cold sweat had worked its way up past his spine to his clammy fingertips. Where was John? Or Isabelle? Please, God, don't let them be hurt.
Faster. Faster. Jesse kicked Rabble, spurring him on. The wolf raced on ahead of them with incredible speed. Over the crest of the hill, the whole awful picture emerged. The barn, half-engulfed in flame, was the torch that fueled the plume of black smoke. Like a roaring beast, it ate at the dry wood with a vengeance; it had already consumed one entire side of the outbuilding. The empty corn cribs were ablaze as well. Burning ash sailed across the yard toward the drying field of alfalfa to the north. But it was already too late. In the center of the field, as if someone had thrown torches, two small circles of fire were already widening.
Worse, Jesse thought, going cold, were the terrified screams of horses from within the burning barn.
Hell! What were the animals doing in the barn in the middle of the day?
"John!" he shouted, hauling his horse to a stop twenty-five feet from the barn near the rusty red water pump. He leapt off and grabbed a bucket, hanging on the fence and gave the pump three priming shoves before the water spilled out. "Isabelle! Anybody!"
Across the yard, the two-story house lay wide open, violated, with several first floor windows smashed and the door half ripped off its hinge. But no sign of fire.
The sound of hoofbeats brought his head around and he saw Silas galloping into the yard atop old Jacksaw, the mule.
"Check the house!" Jesse shouted to Silas as he slid off his mount. "I'll try to get the animals out." Jesse poured the bucket of water over his head, gasping with the shock and started at a run toward the inferno of a barn.
"Hey, you crazy?" Silas argued, catching Jesse's arm. "You can't go in there! It's goin' up like kindlin'."
"Let me go!"
"It's too late. That place'll come down on your head."
"It's my head, dammit! I have to try." Jesse yanked his arm free and ran toward the open do
uble doors. Thick, choking smoke billowed from the portal. He pressed his sleeve against his mouth and nose, took a deep breath and ducked inside. A whooshing sound met him as the far side of the barn roof ignited, along with tinder-dry hay mow above.
From somewhere to his right, a horse screamed and kicked hard at the door of its stall. To his left, another cry, more like the baying of a wolf, sounded, and he guessed it was a cow.
He headed to the right with one hand in front of him. He couldn't really see where he was going, but he'd been in this barn before. Like most, it had a long, wide hallway down the center with a set of stalls lining each side. Overhead, the hay mow glowed eerily red through the slatted floor. The sound was deafening. Following the banging Jesse groped his way to the wall of stall doors and pulled open the first one.
Empty.
The suffocating heat bore down on him like a crushing weight, stealing strength from his limbs. Jesse coughed, unable to draw a clean breath, and pressed his nose tighter against his wet sleeve. He moved down the line, throwing open doors to the empty stalls until he came to the last.
The door banged against its frame as the horse within battered it with its hooves, her scream high-pitched and struck through with terror. Another, even shriller whinny accompanied it.
A foal. He remembered now. Silas had told him of John's prize draft mare who had foaled very late in the season. That explained why the mare was in the barn, he thought, pounding at the nearly splintered wooden latch with the heel of his hand until it came free. Like the air that seared his lungs, the wood felt hot to the touch.
Yanking the door open, he felt more than saw a hoof miss his head by inches, and he drew back. A frightened horse had the sense of a headless chicken and this one seemed on the verge of total panic. Eyes white and rolling, the huge mare banged against the far wall of her stall in confusion. Her foal was no better, but in grave danger of being crushed by its mother.
"Easy, lady," he crooned, ripping the buttons free on his shirt and stripping it off. "Easy now. I'm going to get you out of here." Coughing, he eased closer with the shirt pressed over his mouth. He had to hurry or it would be too late for all of them.
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