Harlequin Historical November 2015, Box Set 2 of 2

by Lynna Banning

  Winifred brushed her fingers over her swollen eyelids. She had wept most of the night and slept little. “It’s—it’s my hay fever, I expect.” She lifted the cup to her lips.

  Sam bent at the waist and tipped his head to peer into her face. “Maybe so,” he pronounced. “Boss eyes look funny, too.”

  The houseboy’s keen black eyes glinted.

  Winifred took a swallow of coffee. “You don’t miss much, do you, Sam?”

  “Miss not much,” he agreed with a grin. “Boss never fool me.”

  Nor, Winifred reflected, had she. She huffed out a sigh. Knowing that Zane was distressed did not ease her own anguish. She’d done more than make a mess of her offer to raise Rosemarie; she’d alienated the doctor, perhaps even made him resent her. Lord’s sake, would he prevent her from visiting her niece in the future? She couldn’t bear that.

  She clamped her mouth shut and pushed away the plate of eggs and toast Sam laid before her. She couldn’t eat. If she opened her mouth she knew a sob would erupt.

  “Must eat, missy. Good fight need full belly.”

  She blinked at Sam in surprise. A good fight?

  He planted his slippered feet at her side and propped his hands on his hips. “You eat,” he ordered. “Then I teach how to make biscuit.”

  “Biscuits!”

  Sam nodded. “Next lesson after tumbled eggs.”

  Oh, for heaven’s sake. All right, she’d eat something.

  Sam was as stubborn as Zane.

  “Doctor leave early,” the houseboy volunteered. “Go on horse to make home calls. You watch baby, I do washing of diapers.”

  After breakfast, Winifred settled in the library to read, keeping her eye on Rosemarie where she slept beside her in a pink flannel-lined laundry basket. When the baby woke, she sat on the floor beside her and let her play with her forefinger. “Oh, you darling, perfect child, do you know how exquisite you are? You have eyes just like my sister’s, yes, you do.”

  She picked the baby up and buried her nose against the child’s soft neck. “And you smell so sweet, like...like a little rose.”

  She rocked the soft bundle in her arms until a faint cry signaled the baby was hungry. Before she could stir, Sam laid a warm bottle of milk in her free hand and padded quietly away.

  By evening, after she had changed and fed Rosemarie again, Zane still had not returned. After a supper of thick potato soup and hunks of fresh-baked bread, Winifred moved the wheeled bassinet from Zane’s room into her own. If the baby woke during the night, Winifred could tend to her. She hoped he wouldn’t mind.

  She lay awake reading the volume of Wordsworth poems by candlelight until long past moonrise, then puffed out the light and closed her still-swollen eyes.

  For the next two days she did not catch even a glimpse of the doctor. She knew he came in from the hospital late at night because Sam reported on his activities. And he left the house before she was awake.

  To pass the time each afternoon she talked to Rosemarie and let her play with her fingers, fed her and rocked her for hours with a fullness in her throat. Whenever she lifted the baby into her arms, an absurd bolt of joy bloomed inside her chest, and when Rosemarie opened her extraordinary eyes and looked at her one evening Winifred knew she had fallen head over heels in love with her niece.

  When the baby was fussy Winifred found herself humming half-remembered lullabies, and when she couldn’t remember the words, she simply made them up. Mornings, while Rosemarie slept, she spent time in the kitchen with Sam. In two days she mastered not only biscuits but pancakes and bread and even piecrust. Piecrust! Just imagine. She might be the only concert pianist in the country who could roll out a piecrust! She couldn’t wait for the next basket of blueberries or blackberries a patient brought for the doctor; she would bake the most delicious pie he ever ate.

  Every morning the entry hall filled up with waiting patients, and every afternoon Sam stepped in to send them all down to the hospital because the doctor had left. After two days without a glimpse of Zane, Winifred knew with certainty that he was avoiding her.

  At breakfast the following morning, Sam clucked over her like a mother hen. “Doctor visit lady wife’s grave yesterday.”

  “Oh?”

  “Then come home drink brandy all night.”

  The houseboy closed his lips with finality and sloshed hot coffee into her cup. “Boss sleep late today. Go to hospital in afternoon, then see patients here today.”

  One of them, young Noralee Ness, brought a quart jar of fresh-picked blackberries. All afternoon Winifred labored in the kitchen over her piecrust, while Sam offered cryptic comments every now and then. “Not more rolling, missy. Make crust like shoe leather.”

  The pie emerged from the oven golden and bubbling purple juice from between the lattice strips. Winifred inhaled the fruity scent and smiled. It would be a peace offering for Zane.

  By suppertime, Zane still had not returned from the hospital. Winifred ate a quiet, solitary supper with Rosemarie sleeping in her basket on the chair next to her. Disappointment gnawed at her.

  She fed and rocked the baby, cut a huge slab of her pie and left it on a plate in the doctor’s office, along with a fork and a napkin. Then she dragged herself up to bed with legs that felt like wooden fence posts. She had made an enemy of Cissy’s husband and Rosemarie’s father. She crawled into bed and pulled the bassinet close.

  She closed her eyes but couldn’t sleep. Was Zane so put out with her he wouldn’t let her visit again?

  In the morning, the bassinet was gone. Winifred sat bolt upright in bed and stared at her closed bedroom door. Zane must have come in while she slept and rolled the bassinet back to his bedroom. At least that meant he was home. She prayed he wasn’t angry with her for moving the baby to her room. And for once she could do what she’d waited days to accomplish, make an apology.

  She dressed in a light blue dimity wrapper, hurriedly braided her hair and pinned the coils at her nape and sped down the stairs to breakfast.

  Zane rose as she entered the dining room. A telltale smear of purple juice on his lower lip hinted that he’d sampled her pie this morning. Something inside her began to sing.

  “Good morning.”

  “Good morning. One of your patients brought some blackberries yesterday, so I—”

  His dark eyebrows rose. “Are you saying you made the pie?”

  “Yes, I... Sam showed me how and—”

  His sudden smile startled her into silence. “I’m surprised,” he said. “And impressed.”

  Winifred knew she was blushing. The distinctly odd expression in Zane’s gray eyes confirmed it. Instantly she found it hard to breathe. He looked and looked at her without speaking until the flesh on her bare forearms formed tiny goose bumps.

  “Winifred?”

  “Y-yes?”

  Zane watched her eyes widen. They were like Celeste’s, yes, but a shade darker. And at this moment they looked...apprehensive.

  “I owe you an apology.”

  The morning air was already stifling, and the sun had scarcely cleared the mountains to the east. Perhaps that was why her cheeks were so pink. He loosened his shirt collar in the oppressive heat.

  She looked down at the tablecloth, at the door leading to the kitchen, everywhere but at him. He held his breath until she spoke.

  “I rather thought I owed you the apology. I had no right to...” She swallowed and looked up at him, her eyes shiny. “Perhaps a child’s place really is with her father.”

  “Perhaps,” he suggested quickly, “we should forgive each other and have breakfast.”

  A beaming Sam slipped into the room, a platter of eggs and bacon in one hand, the coffeepot in the other. “Have biscuits, too,” he announced. “And jar of apricot jam from Missy Madsen. For ulcer, she say.”
<
br />   “Ah, yes.” Zane nodded. “Sent her home yesterday to rest. Apparently she made jam instead. Sometimes I wonder what good a physician’s advice is.”

  Winifred continued to study him.

  He saw that she was struggling to articulate the question in her eyes. “What is it, Winifred? What do you want to ask?”

  She blinked and licked her lips. “How do you know I want to ask anything?”

  “I am a doctor. I was trained to read people’s eyes and facial expressions. Often they reveal more than heart rates or blood pressure, or even fevers.”

  He wished she wouldn’t run her tongue over her lips that way; something inside him flickered to life when she did it. Something he didn’t want to think about.

  God in heaven, every fiber of his being ached to hear Celeste’s voice, feel her warmth beside him at night. His brain could acknowledge that she was gone, but part of him still could not accept it. Maybe he never would.

  The lazy morning heat pressed down on him. He didn’t want to move; he just wanted to escape to someplace cool and green where he didn’t have to think.

  An idea popped into his brain. He discounted it immediately, then shook his head. Yes, why not?

  Chapter Six

  “Winifred, would you care to go swimming this afternoon?”

  She frowned. He could see her hesitation, but the more he thought about it the more he thought it was a good idea. He knew she didn’t like him and he’d hurt her feelings. He wanted to make it up to her in some way. He pressed on. “It’s beastly hot, and I have no duties at the hospital until evening. I often go to a place, we call it a ‘swimming hole’ out here, where the river widens into a pool, like a lagoon. I go there often in the summer, usually on horseback.”

  “I’m afraid I have nothing proper to wear for riding. Or for swimming, either.”

  “Sam can find you something. Besides, no one else ever goes to this spot, so no one will see you.”

  “No one but you.” She sounded half tempted and half disapproving.

  “I won’t look, I promise.”

  “I do not believe you, Zane. But it is too tempting to escape this awful heat, so yes, let’s do go swimming.”

  Zane held back a smile. Celeste’s older sister was more adventurous than Celeste had been. More open to trying new things, like baking a pie. And more tolerant of human error.

  Or was she? He watched her stuff the last of her toast in her mouth and gulp down her coffee. He knew nothing about her, really. Every day she surprised him.

  She rose from the table and started for the kitchen. “Sam? Could you find a riding skirt for me in Celeste’s closet? And maybe...”

  Her voice faded. Zane sat in the humming silence for a full minute. Celeste’s riding clothes would never fit her older sister. Winifred’s build was not delicate like his wife’s.

  Winifred was more shapely. More fluid when she moved. More...handsome, that was the word. And Lord help him, she was much more uninhibited in both her speech and her actions.

  He got to his feet and headed for the stable. He’d take the buggy instead. It was too hot for horseback riding.

  * * *

  Winifred was silent for most of the drive out to the swimming hole, and finally it got under Zane’s skin. What was she thinking about? Was she still angry about the abominable way he’d spoken to her three days ago? He tried to keep his mind on guiding the gray mare hitched to the buggy, but the woman who sat next to him on the leather seat kept capturing his attention.

  She was interested in everything, the larches and sugar maples starting to turn scarlet and gold with the onset of fall, the red-tailed hawks that soared above, the deer they startled in the copse of birches as they approached the river, even the hazy purple mountains in the distance. Finally, she started to talk.

  “What are those little yellow-and-brown birds in that tree?”

  “Chickadees.”

  “And that big blue one with the long tail?”

  “That’s a blue jay. Steller’s jay, it’s called.”

  She laughed. “I should have guessed by the color.” They rode in silence for another mile, and then she pointed at something on the ground. “What is that tangle of green fronds over by the riverbank?”

  Zane had to laugh. “Mint. You’ve never seen mint growing in the wild? When we leave I’ll cut some to take to Sam. He dries the leaves and brews outstanding mint tea.”

  “And that—” She broke off and sent him a sidelong glance. “I’m asking too many questions, aren’t I?”

  He chuckled. “Not nearly enough.” He had to admit he liked showing things to her, explaining things. Celeste had shown little interest in the countryside.

  “How do you know all these things? Did you grow up in the West?”

  “I grew up in a small town in New York. Albany.”

  “I grew up in a city. St. Louis.”

  “I’ll wager you’ve never gone swimming in a river, have you?”

  There was another long silence. “I’ve never gone swimming at all,” she confessed. “Is this swimming hole very, um, deep?”

  Zane shot her a look. Winifred couldn’t swim? Why had she agreed to come?

  The lane narrowed to mere wheel tracks, then curved around behind a stand of ash trees and emerged fifty yards from the lazily flowing river. He pulled the horse to a stop and climbed down.

  “Over there.” He waved one arm. “We walk from here.”

  Winifred clambered out, clutching a rolled-up bit of clothing. Celeste’s bathing costume, he guessed. He’d never seen her wear it.

  The lagoon-like pond where he liked to swim lay tucked in a bend in the river, screened by drooping willow and cottonwood trees. The water looked cool and inviting. Without thinking, he stripped off his muslin shirt, then stopped short.

  She stared at him as if she’d never seen a man’s bare chest before. Good God, perhaps she hadn’t. Once again her cheeks turned rose-red. It never occurred to him that she might be...modest.

  “Winifred, I—”

  “Do you swim, um, naked?”

  “Usually, yes. Today I’ll keep my underdrawers on if you’d feel more comfortable.”

  She didn’t answer for a long moment. “I will, uh, change into Cissy’s bathing costume behind that shrub.” She stepped over to a large huckleberry bush.

  Zane shucked his trousers, sprinted to the water and dove in. Out of courtesy to Winifred he stayed facing away from her until he heard a soft splash behind him. When he turned he caught his breath.

  She stood poised at the river’s edge, swishing the toes of one foot in the water, and good God almighty, she filled every inch of Celeste’s bathing garment. He turned away and swam to the far end of the pool, then stroked to the opposite end.

  Before he reached it, he heard a yelp and a loud splash. When he looked back she was chest-deep in the river.

  “How does one swim?” she called.

  “Just put your arms out and bend forward and then shove off from the bottom.”

  To his surprise she did exactly as he said. Her head disappeared underwater, broke the surface, then sank once more. Just as he started to stroke toward her, she reemerged, her arms flailing, water spewing out of her mouth.

  But she didn’t call for help. Instead, she thrashed forward, trying to keep her head above water.

  “Kick your legs,” he yelled.

  Suddenly she was ploughing through the water, her arms making sloppy waving motions, her eyes scrunched tightly closed.

  “Winifred,” he shouted. “Open your eyes.”

  “Can’t,” she called. “I’ll drown.”

  That made him laugh out loud. She’d come this far; he’d let her discover the rest for herself.

  He stroked to the far en
d of the pool and back again, then methodically swam ten or twelve additional lengths. When he pulled himself onto the sandy bank he was breathing hard.

  Winifred was clumsily propelling herself in a ragged circle, but she had opened her eyes. Zane lay back on the warm sand and laid his arm over his face. He didn’t want to watch her come out of the river. She’d be wet, and the too-small swimming suit would hide nothing. He couldn’t help smiling at the picture he imagined, but he wouldn’t embarrass her by actually looking.

  He’d seen hundreds, maybe thousands, of women’s bodies; but this woman was different. For one thing, she was his wife’s sister.

  But God, how he wanted to see her!

  After half an hour she splashed out of the water with a triumphant cry. “I did it! I can swim!”

  Zane kept his eyes closed.

  “Did you see me? I was really swimming, wasn’t I?”

  “You were really swimming, Winifred. Congratulations.”

  Droplets of cool water hit his chest and still he didn’t open his eyes. “Better get out of that wet suit,” he ordered.

  He prayed she would do just that. The temptation to open his eyes was overpowering.

  He managed another sixty seconds, then caught a fleeting glimpse of her as she ducked behind the huckleberry bush. He groaned, got to his feet and dove into the water again for twelve more laps. When he emerged, Winifred sat on the bank, the skirt of her blue dimity dress hiked up to her calves, her bare toes digging into the sand. She looked like a happy child.

  A lump as big as an orange lodged in his throat. He had never seen Celeste look that young and unguarded. Never.

  He propelled himself out of the river and strode past her to yank on his trousers and shirt. He was still short of breath, but this time he knew it had nothing to do with swimming laps.

  On the drive back to town, Winifred chattered on about teaching herself to swim, about the chickadees, about gathering the mint, about everything. Zane held onto the traces so tight his knuckles ached but said nothing. His breath came in short gusts, his brain swirled with a thousand thoughts. Outrageous thoughts.