by Twilight
“He’s seen us.”
“Without question.”
“Good grief.” She plucked at her hair and her dress and furiously patted her flushed cheeks. She didn’t even glance up at him. “What the devil am I to do? What possible explanation—?”
“Tell him you won’t marry him.”
“He shan’t be pleased. I don’t even have his supper ready for him—” She froze and blinked up at him. “What did you say?”
“Your dress is wet.”
“My—” With a horrified look, she plucked at the cotton molding her breasts, then glowered at his damp chest.
“Don’t look at me like that, Jess, or I’m liable to kiss you again.”
Color flamed clear to her hairline and she commenced with a vicious smacking at the pleats in her skirts. “If you do, I shall sack you, on the spot. I trust you will keep that clearly in mind.”
He cocked a brow. “Trust, you say? My dear, Jess, you yourself know you can ill afford to do that. Particularly now.”
She pursed her lips and balled her fists and most probably stomped her foot somewhere under that dress. Stalwart once more, attempting to smooth all her ruffled feathers. Attempting, without success, to obtain the last word.
Apparently willing to give up the battle, she scurried over to meet Halsey before the thing came to blows. The good, kind reverend bellowed and barked, flapped his arms and gestured wildly at Rance, who merely grinned and waved and resumed his work once they headed for the house.
* * *
“That stinks,” Christian said, making a great show of plugging his nose as he maneuvered around Avram Halsey’s chair to the kitchen sink. Again he slanted Avram a sideways look, grimaced with dramatic fervor, then sent the dishes tumbling into the sink. “Yuck.”
“That’s not a word, Christian.” Jessica said. “Choose another or, better yet, keep your distaste to yourself. Hold still, Avram. You’re fidgeting. And if you fidget, the vinegar will drip and soil your topcoat.”
Avram immediately drew up stiff in the ladder-back chair. Jessica could tell this from the severe tightening of his scalp beneath her massaging fingertips. She emptied a small vial of almond oil directly on top of his head, a spot all but abandoned by hair. This calamitous circumstance had proven even more vexing to Avram than obtaining the necessary funds to complete the refurbishment of his church. Knowing this, Jessica had combed through every book she owned for some remedy for thinning hair. Of course, she’d found one, in The Complete Housewife. A mixture of vinegar and almond oil extract, to be applied directly to the afflicted areas as often as was practicable. Ladies were so very thorough.
“I’m fidgeting as any man would if he were as disturbed by events as I,” Avram huffed. “Gently, Jessica. You don’t want to scare the rest of it out of my head, now, do you? I shan’t abide being bald, I tell you.”
Jessica applied her fingertips to the areas surrounding the top of his head, alarmingly aware that these thrice-weekly applications seemed to be having rather an adverse effect upon Avram’s problem. Yes, she could well imagine Avram Halsey without a hair on his head in relatively little time. Poor man. Best to ease him into the idea. “I don’t know, Avram. I would think you would look rather distinguished without hair. You could grow whiskers in its stead.”
“I’m afraid, my dear, that would be impossible. Unlike that grizzly bear you’ve got laboring in your yard, I find myself blessed to be one of the significantly hairless of my kind. Thankfully so, as far as my beard and chest hair goes. Awful stuff, I tell you.”
He sounded proud of this, his tone laced with a goodly amount of pious pomp. Jessica, however, found herself besieged by the image of water droplets glistening on Logan Stark’s densely furred chest. A now familiar yearning bubbled to life within her, and suddenly the vinegar, this task, even the sight of Avram’s sparsely haired head sent a fleeting abhorrence through her.
“Enough of this talk around the child,” Avram said.
“I’m not a child,” Christian grumbled.
Halsey barely paused. “So, when are you going to start listening to reason and abandon this foolhardy quest for this farm, Jessica? You can start by releasing that savage from his post.”
“I’m afraid I cannot do that, Avram,” Jessica replied, applying a good deal of pressure to his scalp. “You see, he’s building my fence.”
“I know what the devil he’s doing. And it’s all for naught, I tell you. Fences do not profitable farms make.”
“Perhaps. But they make for lovely, secure homes, Avram. Besides, Mr. Stark has helped considerably with the irrigating of my plants.”
“A resourceful fellow, isn’t he?” Avram snorted.
“Remarkably.”
“He fixed our wagon,” Christian said, with a good deal of taunting in his tone.
Jessica threw him a glare of warning. “Weather permitting, and barring any sort of catastrophe, I shall have a plentiful crop for sale. And hopefully enough of a profit to fully repair the house and barn. Be happy for me, Avram. Wash your hands, Christian, then back to your slate. You’ve your numbers to practice.”
“Keep hoping, my dear, though little good it will do you. I’d be happier if you were pounding sand. Do you yet fully realize the money you could make from the sale of this place? Why, the numbers these fellows from the East Coast are talking about—”
Jessica pressed her nails ever so slightly into Avram’s scalp. “Have you been listening to them, Avram?”
“No, not directly,” Avram replied blithely. “Of course not. I simply overheard Widow Brown discussing it with her lady friends. Let me tell you, my dear, the amount—”
“Means nothing to me,” Jessica interjected crisply. “To your slate, Christian. Now,” she tossed over her shoulder to Christian, who had managed to lever himself against the sink, the better to peer out the window.
“But Logan hasn’t eaten supper, Mama.”
“Get your feet off the sink, Christian, and back to your slate.”
She heard the thumping of his bare feet upon the floorboards and his scurrying behind her. And then the door opened and Christian yelled, “Logan, come eat supper.”
“No!” Jessica shrieked. No, she did not want Stark here, in her kitchen with Avram and all this vinegar, not now. Not minutes after he’d...he’d...and she’d... Good grief she could still taste his mouth, the feel of his tongue caressing hers. And the scent filling her nostrils was not that of vinegar and almonds and Avram’s hair tonic, but that of warm, passionate male...
“He’s coming, Mama,” Christian beamed from the doorway.
“Good heavens,” Avram muttered, lurching from his chair and attempting, without success, to smooth his hair back over his vinegar-soused pate. At that precise moment, a broad-shouldered shadow filled the doorway, blocking out all sunlight.
Jessica felt her heart skip a beat, then slam into her lungs. With hands buried in her apron, she spun about and busied herself at the stove, spooning the remainder of the vegetable stew onto a plate. Best to let him eat, of course. A man couldn’t work in all that heat on an empty stomach. Perhaps he would kindly remove himself to the barn—
A chair scraped against the floorboards. With a certain dread, Jessica slowly turned about, plate in hand. He’d donned a shirt and a lazy grin that crinkled the skin around his eyes. He was looking at her through half-hooded eyes, like a beast intent upon a kill.
And he was sitting in Frank’s chair. Casually, with massive forearms braced upon the table and his thighs clamped about the chair, as if never to release their hold upon it. His eyes flickered directly across the table to Avram and narrowed further. One corner of his mouth twitched slightly. He seemed entirely unconcerned, and certainly not unaware, that all present watched him with mute stupefaction.
“Kindly remove yourself from that chair,” Avram said at length.
“It’s fine,” Jessica hurried to interject, placing the plate before Stark and hurrying away before one of those big ha
nds could reach out and grab her.
“But, my dearest—”
“That was my pa’s chair,” Christian graciously provided in a soft, conspiratorial tone. He perched himself at Stark’s side and, with mouth grimly set, looked eager to defend his champion against Avram Halsey. “Reverend Halsey never sits in it.”
“Indeed I don’t,” Halsey said huffily. “Not suitable, I tell you.”
“Odd,” Logan mused, shoving a huge bite into his mouth. He glanced up, eyes full of dancing sunlight, when Jessica placed a warm loaf of bread on the table. She felt those eyes upon her even when she again hastened back to busy herself at the stove, the sink, anywhere but near him. “This chair provides the best view. Little wonder your husband chose it, ma’am.”
This prompted a curious glance from her. She watched him tear into the bread, his fingers so long and strong, yet so gentle...
Avram’s hoarse bark echoed through the kitchen. “Indeed, Stark, whatever are you saying? From this chair one has the most glorious view of the window and the prairie beyond.”
“I wasn’t talking about the window,” Logan said.
Jessica blushed furiously and spun back to the stove, her fumbling hands sending two gravy-laden spoons clanging to the floor. Damn and blast, he was flirting with her, and in Avram’s presence! How could he? She should soundly lambaste him, shouldn’t she? Ah, but surely Avram would. Wouldn’t he? Fiancés should be inordinately sensitive to that sort of thing, shouldn’t they? Perhaps she’d merely imagined it. Yes, she must have, otherwise Avram wouldn’t be sitting there contemplating his fingernails. He would be giving Logan Stark a good dressing-down for such impertinence.
Still, there was little use in denying the twittering in her limbs. Hastily she bent to retrieve the spoons and, upon jerking to her feet, jarred against the iron handle of the stew pot. One hand barely caught the thing before it hurtled to the floor but the remaining hot stew splashed over the bodice of her dress, several drops scalding the exposed skin of her neck. A groan escaped her lips.
A chair’s legs scraped upon the planks.
“Sit down, Mr. Stark,” she blurted without looking up, applying a damp cloth to her neck. “I’m fine. Just a bit clumsy, is all.”
“Ma’am—”
“Heatstroke,” Avram supplied from his chair. “Had her all but swooning in your arms when I arrived. I told her to lie down—”
“You did not,” Christian said accusingly. “You wanted her to give you supper and put that stuff on your hair to make it grow.”
“Now, see here, you impudent scalawag—”
“I am not!” Christian yelled.
“Christian, come with Mama now.”
“But, Mama, he called me a scala...scala...”
“Now.”
Avram executed a smooth glide from his chair, sweeping his coattails behind him. He turned about, dismissing Christian entirely, and regarded Jessica with a mildly reproachful brow. “I’d best be off, my dearest. Plans for the church picnic. You’ve helped so very little with it, you know.”
Jessica pasted on a penitent smile. “I realize that, Avram.”
“Do you? These things mean so much to me, you know. And thus to you, as well.”
“Yes, Avram.”
“Good. Perhaps you’d best take a lie down. You do look rather haggard, and your dress—”
“Thank you, Avram,” she replied, acutely aware that Stark was watching their exchange. Avram seemed concerned with this, as well. And not mildly so. Instead of his usual kiss on the cheek, he gave her a stiff, very proper nod, then turned on his heel and, without a glance at Stark or Christian, left the house.
“I don’t like him,” Christian mumbled.
“You will learn to like him,” Jessica gently admonished. “In the meantime, you will give him your respect. Now, get your slate at once.”
Christian gave a secretive smile. “It’s outside. In the barn.”
“Whatever were you doing in the—?”
“Get it,” Stark said softly.
Christian scampered for the door, and Jessica took to the hall and her room. She had her dress to change, after all. Besides, she had no desire to linger alone in the kitchen with Stark.
* * *
Rance swallowed the last of the cool water and set the cup in the sink with a satisfied groan. He stared from the kitchen window and listened to the soft chiming of a clock in the parlor. And then silence. Peace wrapped around him like the comforting aroma of Jessica Wynne’s cooking, no matter that the temperature in the kitchen had swelled beyond that out of doors.
His gaze swept again to his stone fence. Yes, there was an undeniable puffing-up of his chest when he looked at it. Job well done, and all that. Still, some damnable instinct would have him linger here, with her, rather than return to all that heaving and hoisting of stone, no matter how satisfying he found it. Far more satisfying than anything he’d done in a long time.
He turned and took three steps toward the hall, then stopped. Again, silence. Not a whisper of sound from down that shadowy hall. So, she slept. He frowned at a bookcase stuffed with all her How-to books. His thumb brushed over the frayed and well-worn bindings. Ladies’ Indispensable Assistant. The Good Housekeeper. How to be a goodly, kind, worthy...
He doubted one of those books advised a goodly, kind and worthy wife to nap her afternoons away.
Surely she hadn’t succumbed to some sort of heatstroke? God knew toiling over a stove and hot stew on such a day would test even the most sturdy of women. And the most determined. He set his teeth and peered down the hall.
He would have heard her, had she crumpled to the floor. Then again, she weighed next to nothing, and even in such a deranged state would have undoubtedly contrived to fall upon the bed, lest she mar her floor or disturb all those beaten rugs.
His feet moved soundlessly upon the floor. It was a skill he had honed some time ago. He was trespassing. No, he was seeing to her welfare. She’d looked...overcome, that was it, when she spun from that stove. Not haggard, damn Halsey to hell and back, but pale. Fragile as a sparrow, as though the burden had suddenly grown too much for her delicate wings to bear, no matter the stoutness of her heart.
Her door was slightly ajar. He stared at the wooden knob, his ears straining for some sound of her deep breathing. The wood was smooth beneath his palm as he pushed against it, gently.
And then he saw her. And, for a brief moment, the world ceased to spin.
Chapter Seven
Turn around, you damned fool....
Of course, his conscience would choose such a time to find itself and roar to life. Odd, but he couldn’t remember such a thing ever happening before, particularly when he’d come upon a woman in a tumbled state of undress. No, he usually left his conscience with his horse, soundly tethered outside the saloon, where it belonged. Of course, those women had been saloon girls, and their “startled” dishabille, an art form much perfected. Those women had wanted nothing to do with his conscience.
But Jess...
She sat at her dressing table with head lowered, as yet unaware that he loomed, the trespasser, in her doorway. He could simply turn around, as stealthily as he’d ventured here, and she need never realize...
If only he could convince his legs to move, his eyes to cease their feasting on her, no matter conscience’s dictates. A fool he was, to think this woman incapable in any way, or the sort to submit to heatstroke. Fragile, yes, her limbs fine and slender, her skin smooth as the finest white porcelain. Looking at her here, demure and silent, clad only in her white cotton camisole and pantalets, he was struck immediately by her innocence, her youth, the utter vulnerability of her, like that of a sapling facing a fierce winter’s wind. Yet in the next moment he was overcome by the unadulterated sensuality of her...and all that slumbering power there.
It made no sense. None of it. Hadn’t he long preferred tall, amply rounded brunettes sturdy in their seasoned wit and expertise, women who wore their audacity and b
razenness as boldly as they did their red satin petticoats and black lace garters? Not some persnickety, befuddling, not to mention exasperating, half wisp of a blonde who had somehow come under the ridiculous notion that she should be able to take on the world, without anyone’s help, and accomplish it all to her own exacting and utterly impossible standards.
He was incapable of remembering even one face, one name, one encounter amid the blur that had become all those women. And yet her face had indelibly stamped itself upon his mind from the moment he stuffed that locket into his pocket. He could see no other when he closed his eyes and conjured forth a woman to ease his stirring passions.
He’d long been known for being hard-hearted, even callous, entirely immune to any woman’s teary plight, contrived as most were...yet here he stood, awash in the entirely proper thing to do, at once fraught with concern for her, yet consumed by the thought of easing himself upon that smooth white flesh. And so very little of all this had to do with exacting his penance and undoing all he inflicted when he’d killed Frank Wynne. No, far greater powers were at work here, powers suddenly beyond him. And he suddenly knew that this woman—the one woman who had no business doing so—this woman had captured him and now held him as soundly as she did the ivory-handled hairbrush she passed slowly through her unbound hair.
Sunlight ignited liquid fire through those blond curls. He watched the brush stroking, watched one curl spring back to coil against the thrusting peak of her breast. Through the thin cotton, the nipple swelled and pushed against the fabric.
His eyes met hers in the looking glass. Her lips parted in a hushed breath. Silence hung as thick as the heated air. Rance drowned in the fierce power of desire. She stared at him, her hand slowly placing the brush upon the dressing table. She made no move to cover herself, simply touched trembling fingertips to the narrow pink ribbon binding her camisole.
He moved into the room, and lemon scent enveloped him like a lover’s soft arms, luring him nearer, even when she rose from her stool. Still, she didn’t turn to him, or flee, or voice a protest. No, she couldn’t. She musn’t. He wouldn’t be able to bear it, not to be able to touch her.
