“I can’t think of anything I need, but thank you for asking.” Then she thought to add, “Well, maybe another sack of cornmeal. Mine got weevily.” Mercy, she never knew she was so good at lying. “I’ve been drinking more coffee lately, too—perhaps another pound of coffee beans? And maybe some hairpins and ham or bacon?”
He nodded. “Don’t reckon you’ve heard anything lately?”
Heard anything? Like what? A man crying for help because he’d been attacked by a band of drunken backwoods ruffians? “Well, I thought I heard thunder last night, but it never rained. Ground’s as dry as a bone.”
He nodded again. Nervously, she went on, gilding the lily as cousin Annie used to say. “The ravens were kicking up a fuss this morning, and to hear those eagles screaming, you’d think they were fighting a war instead of just courting. And whichever dog that is that barks all night—”
“Billy’s old coon dog. He treed Miz Lucy’s tomcat. Cat come a-shinnying down the tree and lit into him, like to tore him up. You partial to peppermint? I could bring you some candy.”
Candy? What ailed the man? Had he decided to follow suit and court her for Dev’s shares, the way all the other bachelors had done?
Merciful heavens, not now, she thought frantically. The last thing she needed was another suitor. At first she’d thought the others had been teasing when they had offered her their hand in marriage, twisting the traditional words. But one thing the Millers lacked—among several she could name—was a sense of humor.
“If you want to know what I’d really like—other than to go back to Charlotte, that is—I’d really, really like a newspaper. I don’t even care which one, just so I can keep up with what’s going on in the world.”
Just so she could see if anyone wanted to hire a teacher just as the school year was drawing to a close. Or a tutor, or a housekeeper, or even a shop clerk.
“Well, we ain’t at war, if that’s what you was worried about. I reckon that there’s something. They’s a whole bunch of new places being built up along the new railroad lines, and they’s fixin’ to let some more o’ them western territories into the union. If you like licorish better, I could bring you some of that ’stead o’ peppermint.”
Smiling stiffly, Eleanor waved away a swarm of gnats attracted by her sweaty skin. The sun felt more like July than April. How could she make him leave? To think of all the times she would have welcomed his company—welcomed any company at all. Now that she couldn’t wait for him to go, the stubborn man wouldn’t move.
“I went to school,” he said, looking so proud and shy she felt her resolve begin to melt. “All the way to the third grade, did Dev tell you?”
“He told me,” she said gently. My God, how was it possible in this day and age for such pockets of sheer ignorance to exist? The governor ought to be tarred and feathered and run out of Raleigh.
“I think that’s commendable, Hector. Have you ever considered going back to school?”
Don’t ask questions, you fool—don’t invite him to linger! What if he hears something and goes inside?
“Don’t need to,” he said, swinging his foot. It was the only sign that he was at all embarrassed. If he were embarrassed enough, would he leave?
“Of course you need to,” she said firmly. “Every man needs to be educated. How else can you hope to keep up with what’s going on in the world?”
The foot swinging stopped. He eased off the porch and said, “You real sure you didn’t hear nothing a few nights ago?” Was it her imagination, or was that suspicion that narrowed his gentian-blue eyes?
Wordlessly, she shook her head. Surely Hector hadn’t been a part of it. She had thought better of him…but then, he was a Miller, after all, third-grade education or not.
Moving with maddening deliberation, he knocked the burning tobacco from his pipe against the sole of his bare foot. “I’ll bring you a sack o’ meal and some coffee beans,” he said. “Maybe some meat. You need some corn for them hens o’ your’n?”
She nodded. Anything—anything to get rid of him.
Chapter Seven
How odd, Eleanor thought as she watched the dense laurel thicket swallow him up. In the shy, polite way of the Miller men—most of the Miller men, she corrected—it was almost as if he were courting her. Yet, not once had she caught any sign of real interest in those clear blue eyes. Even the twins, Buster and Abner—two wild young hellions barely out of their teens—had been more convincing. The lure of an older woman, perhaps.
And of course, the lure of all those mythical gold shares.
Catching a final flash of blue on the path below, she breathed a sigh of relief. It had been bad enough before, knowing that she was a prisoner. Now that she had something to hide—someone to hide—her situation was even more precarious.
Once inside, she glanced through the bedroom door to see if by any chance Jed had overheard anything. He might have recognized Hector’s voice. She hoped not, but still…
He was sleeping. Or pretending to sleep. In any case, she might as well take the opportunity to bathe and change out of her gardening clothes. She had a tendency to crawl from place to place when she was gathering greens.
She bathed quickly, glancing frequently toward the open bedroom door in case by some miracle Jed should emerge to surprise her. Standing in the middle of the kitchen floor in her drawers and bodice, with a man lying only a few feet away made her feel oddly breathless. Not only daring, but downright wicked.
After donning clean underwear she considered her options. Earlier she had brought most of her personal things out into the living room, hiding her underwear in a box under the sofa and hanging her dresses from pegs on the wall where Devin’s and his grandfather’s guns used to hang. If Hector had come inside, he would have had to wonder why they weren’t in the bedroom.
Now she looked over the paltry selection. Certainly not the rose silk, that was much too fine, but there was really nothing wrong with wearing her blue sprigged muslin. It was certainly modest enough, the high collar made even higher with the row of ecru lace she had added when the seam at the throat had begun to fray. Besides, it was only sensible to save her everyday dresses for housework and gardening.
Her hairbrush was still in the bedroom. She’d forgotten to retrieve it, along with her other pair of shoes. After sniffing the muslin dress to be sure it didn’t smell musty, she slipped it over her head, hurriedly fastened the jet buttons, and tiptoed into the bedroom.
He was still there. She hadn’t imagined him. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had imagined a friend—someone to talk to when loneliness made her fear for her sanity. After endless months of being alone, with only the briefest infrequent visits from people with whom she had nothing in common, she still couldn’t believe there was a man in her bed. True, he wasn’t much company, but he was a real, live, warm human being. Someone she could talk to without feeling as if she’d slipped too far round the bend.
Eleanor told herself it was good that he was still sleeping. Good that he’d slept clean through the middle of another day and into the afternoon. Sleep was beneficial, and besides, she was having trouble putting together three meals a day for two.
“Do you like my dress?” she murmured, turning to catch her reflection in the small looking glass over the washstand. “I bought it brand-new the year I graduated from college. I added the buttons and lace myself the year after I started teaching. I think they add a rather nice touch, don’t you?”
No answer, of course. Not so much as the flicker of an eyelid. The swelling was going down nicely now that she’d made him cold compresses for both eyes, but his poor face was a sight to behold. She hadn’t noticed before, but he had nice eyebrows. Dark, silky, just thick enough, with just the right amount of arch.
“I thought first of using pearl buttons. With the blue, you know. But the jet adds just the right touch of formality so that I can wear it for special occasions.”
His mouth really didn’t twitch, did it? It was
only her imagination. She’d been staring at his face, willing him to wake up and talk to her. She was probably just seeing things.
With a sigh, she collected her shoes and her hairbrush and left, thoroughly ashamed of herself. “For heaven’s sake, Eleanor, the poor man is ill,” she muttered, plopping herself down on the sofa. “He’s not a toy, brought here for your amusement. Behave yourself!”
Easier said than done, she thought ruefully. For a mature, respectable woman, she was acting like a shameless hussy, flirting with a poor man who was in no position to defend himself.
With an impatient sigh, she glared at the spool-heeled high-tops, bought years ago to wear to church. She hadn’t worn them since Devin’s funeral, but she knew in advance they were going to pinch. For everyday wear, she had her sturdy, flat-heeled, round-toed teaching shoes, but now, like so much else in her life, they were threatening to fall apart.
Sometimes she even went barefoot, something she had never, ever done back in Charlotte. Cousin Annie claimed worms could get into your body through the soles of your feet. For a retired schoolteacher, Annie Mayne had harbored a few peculiar notions, but Eleanor missed her far more than she missed her late husband. If Annie had still been alive, none of this would be happening to her now. She would never have been vulnerable to a man like Devin Miller.
Sliding one bare foot over beside the pointy-toed shoe, she compared the shapes. Her feet had spread, probably from going barefoot in the house. It was plain to see the shoes no longer fit properly, if they ever had.
“Vanity, vanity,” she muttered. Tugging on her hose, she crammed her foot into one of the stylish shoes and winced. No doubt about it. She’d be limping before the day was over.
Covering her dress with a clean apron, one she’d made from one of Cousin Annie’s kitchen curtains, she tottered into the kitchen, washed the greens and put them on to boil with a pinch of salt. Oh, for a strip of seasoning meat. Adding salt, water and one precious egg to a cup of cornmeal—it wasn’t actually weevily, she’d only said that as an excuse to get more—she made corn bread to go with the greens. It wasn’t much, but it was the best she could do until more supplies were provided.
At home the evening meal had been called dinner. As much as she’d tried to maintain civilized standards, by no stretch of the imagination could wild greens and corn bread be called “dinner.”
Nevertheless, she arranged it on one of her three remaining china plates and folded a linen napkin beside it. All her life she’d been drilled on the importance of maintaining standards. “I’ve backslid as far as I intend to,” she declared to no one in particular as she elbowed the bedroom door open and entered, tray in hand.
My mercy, was that a smile tugging at the corners of his poor battered lips? “I’d better put something on that mouth of yours again. It’s healing nicely, but once you start talking and—” She started to say smiling, but in case he denied it, she changed it to eating. “—and trying to eat, you could open the split again.”
He actually did smile then. She nearly melted on the spot. He had a beautiful mouth now that most of the swelling had gone down. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had offered her a genuine smile. The Millers weren’t much for smiling, not even Devin, once he’d won his objective.
“Pants,” he said.
“Your blue jeans? They’re clean and dry, just as good as new,” she said. “I could help you put them on, but you’d probably be more comfortable the way you are now.”
He was wearing only the strips of sheeting on his upper half, the bottom of his long johns with the left leg cut short to accommodate his swollen ankle, which was no longer quite so swollen. She had managed to get the things off him long enough to wash and dry them, but it had been an uphill battle.
Another uphill battle, she amended silently, thinking of the way he had struggled up the path and practically collapsed at her feet.
“I wish I had some news to share,” she said brightly, “but not much ever happens up here.” Did he know about her visitor? Had he recognized the voice? “It’s only wild greens, but I made some corn bread. I hope you like it— I used the last of the butter on it.” On your portion, she amended silently. She would eat her share dry. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“Fry bread.”
“I beg your pardon?” She lifted a fork full of greens, but before it could reach his mouth, he took the fork from her hand. “Well, all right, if you insist, but I don’t mind feeding you, not one bit.”
If he didn’t need her to feed him, he wouldn’t need her company, and she didn’t want to leave. She tucked a towel under his chin to keep the greens from dripping all over his binding, noticing as she did how fast his beard grew. “I could bring my supper in here and we could dine together?”
Jed took a bite of corn bread and she waited for some indication, either that he liked it, or that he would welcome her company.
“Yes, well…I’ll just get my plate and be back in a minute. Did you want pepper vinegar with your greens? I forgot to ask.”
“Thank you, no. It’s good. Bread’s good. Thank you.”
Outside the bedroom, she leaned against the whitewashed log wall and beamed. He talked whole sentences. He liked her food. He didn’t tell her not to come back. “‘Oh, frabjous day, callooh, callay, she chortled in her joy,’” she misquoted.
Did he like poetry? Did he like Lewis Carroll? Oh, they had a million things to talk about. She’d been saving up forever!
While she clattered around in the kitchen, Jed scraped up the last of his greens. He’d give ten dollars for a beefsteak, but not only did he not have ten dollars—they’d stolen his damned saddlebags, with everything inside—his clothes, his gun, his money—but he wasn’t sure he could handle anything thick and tough.
Besides, the woman—Eleanor—obviously didn’t have any beef. Judging from what he’d seen and heard, she had little of anything. Were her kinfolk trying to starve her?
For a skinny woman, she was shapely enough, but she could have used another five or ten pounds. He liked well-rounded women. Liked all women, he just didn’t care to get involved with one. He’d tried that once a long time ago and still bore the marks.
“I’m putting the kettle on for tea,” she called out from the kitchen. “Real tea this time, not willow bark.”
He said, “Mm.”
What the devil was that gibberish she’d been spouting when she’d left to get her supper? Who was Ka-Lou? What was a kalay? He knew what a chortle was, it was a kind of a laugh—a chuckle. He also knew that if he tried it, it would probably kill him.
She came through the door carrying a plate, a fork and a napkin, beaming like the lantern on a caboose. It was all he could see, that smile of hers. What was it about her smile that was so different from other women’s smiles?
One thing came to mind right off. Other women usually wanted something from him. Money, for the most part. Fifty cents, a dollar—two dollars. Whatever the going rate was.
He had never quite figured out what it was Vera had wanted from him, back when she’d first started hanging around her father’s lineshack where he’d been staying while he worked fence. It sure as the devil hadn’t been money, because he hadn’t had any. Old Stanfield had been big on promises, but slow to deliver when it came to paying off his hands. By the time he’d left there—been run off, more like—he’d worked two and a half months for the old skinflint, and had yet to see a payday.
Unless he considered sleeping with Stanfield’s daughter payment. After the first time, money had been the last thing on his mind.
“Well. I see you’ve already finished.” She sat and started to eat, looking at him expectantly after every forkful, like she expected him to start a conversation.
Jed considered pretending to fall asleep again. If she stayed in the room with him much longer, she was bound to talk. And if she asked him a question, he might feel obliged to answer. That required breathing, and breathing still hurt.
T
he damned sticks digging into his chest through the rags hurt. His face hurt, his head hurt, and so did his leg. His ankle throbbed like war drums. The skin was as tight as any drum. He knew. He’d twisted around until he could see. Damn near ruined him, too. He’d all but cried himself to sleep and then slept all day.
How long had it been now? Two days? Three? Lying here in bed, trussed up like a damned mummy, he had trouble keeping track.
“Well,” she said. She said that a lot. Sort of like, “What shall we talk about now?”
“What shall we talk about?” she said brightly. “I’ve been thinking, and I believe I know how we can get away once you’re well enough to travel.”
“Mm?” She didn’t need any encouragement to babble away like a mile of white water.
“You see, I’ve been going about it all wrong. At first I openly asked for a ride to the nearest town. After that, I tried to think of ways to convince them to let me leave, and then I started trying to sneak away.” She shook her head, poked a forkful of greens between her soft pink lips, tilted her head thoughtfully and said, “Salt.”
He didn’t say a blessed word. Didn’t need to. Some creatures needed a prod to get them started; all she needed was a pair of ears.
Didn’t even need that, come to think of it. Half the time while he was asleep, or pretending to be, she was out there all by herself, rattling on about gold and crazy people and somebody called cousin Annie. Talking to her chickens. Talking to a peckerwood that was hammering a hole up under the eaves. Fool woman actually offered him corn to quit drilling.
Might get better results if she’d offer him a few worms.
“—but of course, they have this stupid thing about Devin’s shares. I told you about that, didn’t I? How my late husband inherited this mythical gold mine from his grandfather, and now I’ve inherited it from him, and I don’t even want it, even if there is any gold left. I’m convinced there’s no more than a few grains at best—just enough to tantalize them into thinking they’re going to strike it rich any day now. They keep on panning the creek, putting up signs to keep anyone else from daring to come anywhere close. Honestly, you’d think by now—”
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