He frowned. “They’d better not call you that in front of me. Anyway, that didn’t happen.” Since it didn’t seem that he was going to say more, she was about to let the subject drop when he said, “I saw Cooper Matthews in town, that’s all. We tangled a little. You know how he is.”
Yes, she certainly did. He’d been no better as a boy, but as a man he was more menacing. Cooper made trouble wherever he went. “Do you think he’ll come here again?”
He shook his head. “I doubt it. He’ll wait until I’m in town again, or some other time when he can sneak up on me.”
She looked up at his clean profile again, and took a breath. “I-I know it’s none of my business—and I know you were only doing your job at the time and had no choice. But maybe—if he’s carrying such a grudge about Wesley, do you think it might help if you apologized to Cooper for killing his son?”
He came to such an abrupt stop, Kansas bumped his nose against Jeff’s shoulder. His face full of anger and raw pain, he spun toward her with a violence that made her shrink from him.
“Apologize!” The mule’s ears went flat and Allie jumped. “Good God, woman, don’t you think I did that? I was the one who went to Matthews to tell him I’d killed Wes. I could barely string my words together for the guilt I felt and the anger. For the senselessness of it all. But I told him I was sorry—that it was the sorriest day of my whole goddamned life. All he said was that I hadn’t seen that day yet, but he’d make sure I did. I even paid the undertaker for the boy’s burial expenses and I went to his funeral. Cooper didn’t. As far as I know, he’s never visited his own son’s grave. I’m not apologizing to him again.”
“No, of course not—” Althea fumbled, her heart beating double-time in her throat. She was unaccustomed to raised voices. In the Ford house, anger had always been expressed with austere disapproval and a dour cold shoulder.
“And anyway, to Cooper’s way of thinking, a man who shows pity or remorse or mercy is weak, and I’m not going to be the one to change his narrow little mind. I don’t have to.”
“Then maybe it isn’t important that Cooper forgives you. It might be that you need to forgive yourself.” Althea couldn’t believe she’d given voice to the suggestion.
His sandy brows went up. “Myself! That’s what Sally— What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
She didn’t want to make him angrier. Besides, it was really none of her business. She retreated another step and shook her head. “I spoke out of turn. I’m sorry.”
He glared at her with eyes that looked like green ice. “Everyone is great at giving advice. Well, I’ll tell you something, Miss Ford. Until you’ve walked in my boots— Oh, hell, just forget it!” he snapped.
Turning, he wrapped his hand in the uncooperative mule’s bridle and pulled him forward again, drawing closer to the barn doors than Althea wanted to go. Why she cared she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t want him mad at her.
She stood on the path and called after him. “Mr. Hicks—Jeff—wait.” He didn’t respond and she called again. “Please stop?”
He stopped and faced her, his expression suddenly weary, as if the outburst had cost him all of his newly gained strength. The sight of it struck her heart.
She closed the distance between them and tried not to twist her hands together like an awkward girl. “I really am sorry.”
His hard expression melted. “Well, I guess I shouldn’t have gotten so hot under the collar,” he muttered.
“I’m glad you—I want to thank you for coming back,” she said, fiddling with the meal sack. She didn’t know why, but she felt it was important to tell him that.
“You didn’t believe I would, huh?”
She opened her hands. “I know you don’t really want to be here. And I gave you the perfect chance to run off.”
He turned his attention to a bloom of Queen Anne’s lace near his boot, avoiding her gaze. “I didn’t plan to do that. I have to confess that once I got into town, with money in my pocket I had some trouble staying out of the Liberal Saloon. But I did.” He lifted his eyes to hers and took a step toward her. “You’re wrong about one thing, though, Allie. I do want to be here.”
There was something about the way he said it that made Allie’s breath come a little faster. “You do?”
He moved closer, keeping his grip on the mule’s lines but letting them out a little, the way a cowboy might give some slack to a yearling after a hard day. “Well, not at first, I admit that. But it’s good to have a tie to the land again, to sink my hands into it and grow things. To watch the season turn. I haven’t felt like that for a long time. Anyway, you need someone around here to fix things up.”
His reaction was so different from that of the other men she’d hired to work here. Jeff didn’t treat her like a crackpot, watching her with rude, sidelong gazes, or talking down to her as if she were an idiot who couldn’t understand. But maybe he didn’t because he knew what it meant to be treated that way himself. And it might be why she didn’t want him angry with her.
So relieved that he’d gotten over his temper, Allie said, “For dinner I thought that you might want—that is—you’re welcome to have dinner with my sister and me. If you like.” She extended the invitation, feeling so awkward and shy, she knew she was blushing.
“You’re eating on the porch again?”
“Well, no, we’ll sit at the dining room table inside. Maybe it might be a nice change from eating from a tray in the lean-to, or in the yard. You know . . . not so lonely.”
Absently he stroked the mule’s neck and finally he nodded. “Thanks, Allie. I’d like that very much.”
He was so handsome standing there, she thought. The late afternoon sun glimmered on the blond streaks in his hair and his lean-muscled height called to her. She was loath to leave his presence. In fact, just looking at him flooded her with a torrent of feelings and emotions that pulled her to him and she felt powerless to resist. Was he ever lonely, she wondered, lonely to the marrow of his bones as she sometimes was?
“We’re having roast beef,” she noted inanely.
Allie could have told Jeff she was serving boiled goat hide for all he cared right now. She had invited him to her table and that was good enough for him. At this moment he felt just a little taller than the man who had robbed Farley Wright’s hen house.
His eyes never left hers—they were the color of a sunset sky in winter—and he watched her hesitant approach. Sometimes when he looked at her he saw loss and a loneliness that he couldn’t define. It was there in those eyes.
But right now, all he saw was the woman. Her breasts swelled beneath the plain bodice of her serviceable dress, and her waist cut in sharply to flare gently at her hips. He imagined running his hands over her bare skin, following the flowing line of her body. A curling tendril of copper hair resting on her pale forehead hair fluttered in the breeze, as delicate as a flower petal.
She stopped not more than a pace before him, and Jeff dropped the reins. A surge of desire bolted through him, not unlike what he’d felt the day Allie measured him for his shirt. But it was even stronger now.
His instinct driving him, he knew what he must do, what everything male in him demanded that he do.
He leaned forward, his lips just inches from her face.
Closer—closer until he touched his mouth to hers, softly, gently, with a kiss that was little more than a shadow.
Jeff hadn’t kissed a woman sober since Sally left. The sensation was so moving, so sweet, he felt his emotions rise even as his body responded with hardness.
Resisting the urge to crush her to him, he allowed himself only to bracket her chin with his fingertips. But God, it was a trial to keep his hand on her jaw. He heard her swift intake of breath. Please don’t pull away, Allie . . . please, no, he thought. But she didn’t.
“Allie,” he whispered, breaking the kiss. “Thank you.” He was so damned grateful to her, it was all he could manage to say. Her hand, at least he could take her hand�
�
“Ouch!” She jumped back and snatched her fingers from his.
“Damn, I’m sorry, I forgot about your burn—”
She backed away, then, her eyes still wide, her fingers pressed lightly to her lips. “It’s all right. Um—I’d better see to dinner if we’re going to eat.” She turned and hurried through the grass to the back porch.
When she reached it, she looked at him over her shoulder, then ran inside.
~~*~*~*~~
“Do you mean he came back?” Olivia, ashen-faced, stared at her sister across the lid of the grand piano. Althea thought she looked crestfallen, as though she’d suffered some grave disappointment, but she couldn’t imagine why. Olivia got her way on nearly everything.
“Yes, isn’t it wond— I mean, of course he did. I’ve asked him to have dinner with us.” Althea had dashed upstairs to her room to put on a clean dress and tidy her hair. Now she fussed with a bud vase on the side table next to the settee and straightened a needlepoint pillow. She felt excited and lighthearted, terrified and rather womanly, all at the same time. Jeff had kissed her! A proper lady would not have permitted such a liberty. In fact, she should probably be very angry. But she wasn’t and at this moment, she didn’t care.
Womanly. Yes, that was how Jeff Hicks made her feel.
Her sister scowled, wrinkling up her delicate face like a Danish squash. “Dinner! Althea, you can’t mean you’re going to invite that man, that derelict, into the house.”
“He’s really tried hard to get back on his feet since he got here, and he’s made progress. Anyway, I think it will do us both good.”
Olivia traced the ivory keys with her fingertips. “But you know I get tired so easily.”
“But that’s all right. You won’t have to do anything special except help me set the table, and maybe slice the bread. The roast is almost finished—it’s been in the oven for more than an hour.” Distracted, she added, “I wish we had a dessert.”
“But you can’t cook with your hand burned like that,” her sister continued, a faint panicky sound in her sweet voice that Althea chose to overlook.
“I’ve already cooked dinner, Olivia,” she pointed out again. “Just as I always have.” With her teeth gritted, she had applied a cooling paste of baking soda to her burn and bandaged it.
“I don’t want some stranger sitting at the table with me, watching me eat.”
Althea had spent most of her life catering to her sister’s wishes and had never asked anything for herself. Just this once, she would. She walked to the piano bench and put her uninjured hand on Olivia’s shoulder. The blond hair under her palm was as silky as a child’s. “Heavens, dear, he’s not going to watch you eat. Please, Olivia—I think it would be a nice change. It’s Saturday evening—a lot of people entertain on Saturday evenings. We can do it just this once. Besides, I’ve already asked him. I can’t take back the invitation now.”
Olivia pursed her mouth into a white line. “All right, Althea.” She looked up at her with a sidelong gaze. “If that’s what you want.”
CHAPTER TEN
Jeff stood outside the lean-to and stared at the back door across the yard. He had washed, shaved, and washed again, as nervous as a moonstruck boy calling on a girl for the first time. He wasn’t really calling on Allie—she had only invited him to dinner after all, a mere courtesy extended by a woman to her employee. Just the same, he’d stood before his shaving mirror, trying to see all of himself by ducking and stretching, although it had been no use. A little bay rum would have been a nice touch, too, but he’d settled for slicking down his clean hair with water.
He hadn’t sat down at anyone’s table for a long time, and the prospect had him so edgy he almost wished he’d declined the invitation. He’d spent so much time alone in his blur of endless days and nights, he didn’t remember how to make small talk and was worried that he might forget his table manners. Maybe if he just concentrated on his plate— But he wasn’t really going there to eat. He was going because he wanted to be close to Allie.
He couldn’t believe he’d kissed her like that, in the middle of the yard with a damned mule looking on. Wasn’t that romantic as hell? He hadn’t planned to do it, but with her standing so close and looking so good, he’d settled his mouth over hers before he knew quite how it happened. With all other woman he’d ever kissed, he’d considered each move before he made it, but with Allie, it had been a spontaneous act, as natural and essential as breathing.
And it had more than made up for Cooper Matthews’ bedevilment.
After ducking back inside the lean-to for a last glance in his shaving mirror, Jeff decided he looked as good as he was going to and he struck off for the house. Stiff as celluloid, his new jeans sang like a pair of crickets with every step he took. He cringed at the noise. Hell if he didn’t look and sound like a new-made Christian, fresh from the river of salvation and all spruced up in his new clothes, ready to shout hallelujah. Remembering the feel of Allie’s soft lips beneath his and picturing her smooth, creamy skin, though, his thoughts were anything but pious.
When he reached the porch, the aroma of food drifted to him, rich and savory, and he paused with his knuckles hovering over the door. What would he say? What would Allie and her sister say? Maybe they’d ask a lot of questions that he didn’t want to answer. They might want to know about Sally and why she’d left him. People loved to hear about the miseries of others. It made their own mundane lives seem more tolerable.
He glanced back at the lean-to, as weathered and gray as the barn it was attached to. He could still turn around and go back. Make up some excuse to avoid hurting Allie’s feelings and escape this—
Suddenly the door opened and Jeff found himself face to face with Allie Ford, his upraised knuckles perilously close to tapping on her nicely formed nose. He dropped his arm and backed up a step. Damn, wasn’t she pretty? Her pink dress was complemented by a pink satin ribbon that she’d wound through her curls, and her smooth skin looked as velvety and delicately colored as a rose. All thoughts of begging off fled from his mind.
“Mr.—I mean, Jeff—please—come in.” Her gaze swept over him and his clothes, and she smiled. “You wore the shirt I made for you. I haven’t seen it since the afternoon I left it in the lean-to.” She tipped her face down in a gesture of shyness that touched him. Until this moment, Althea Ford had not struck him as a shy woman. “I was worried that you didn’t like it.”
He fingered one of his cuffs. “No, ma’am, it’s a fine shirt. I was saving it for a special occasion.” He looked up again. “I guess this qualifies.”
Her cheeks colored a bit as her eyes slid away from his. He couldn’t help but smile. “We’re just about ready to sit down. Come on this way.”
“Thanks.” He followed her inside, noting that at the nape of her neck, wispy little curls had escaped the hairpins to lay in shimmering red ringlets against her pale skin, making him think of swirls of raspberry juice on cream.
She moved ahead of him with precise, fluid grace, the rosy folds of her skirts whipping the door jambs as she passed. Jeff couldn’t decide which smelled better—Allie or dinner.
Inside, the house looked better than it did from the yard. As he passed through the kitchen, he saw it was big and bright. In the dining room curtains graced every window with a definite feminine touch that, surprisingly, didn’t seem so bad to him. Jeff would prefer more rugged surroundings himself, but the lace tablecloth and flowered upholstery on the chair seats in the dining room made him think of the house he’d grown up in.
Except for the pale specter of Olivia Ford.
She sat at her place at the table and studied him with a careful, assessing look from beneath long lashes.
Not addle-minded, Eli Wickwire had told him. No, up this close Jeff could see that his original assumption had been wrong. He had the feeling that this young woman missed nothing. There was also something that lurked behind those hazel eyes, something Jeff had seen somewhere before, but couldn’t q
uite—
“Olivia, won’t you say hello to Mr. Hicks?”
“Hello, Mr. Hicks,” she parroted and gave him a flat smile.
“Ma’am.”
Allie directed him to the place across the table from her own. “This is a real treat, isn’t it, Olivia? We don’t have company very often.”
“I’m so sorry about that Althea,” Olivia said in a soft voice that struck Jeff as too sincere to be real.
“Sorry?” Althea echoed. “Whatever for?”
“Well, it’s my fault that you never get to entertain,” Olivia replied earnestly. “Because I haven’t been well for the longest time.” She took a biscuit from the plate that Allie handed to her. “I don’t know if Althea told you that, Mr. Hicks. I worry about being a burden to her, but she’s an angel to have put up with me all this time. I have no idea what I’d do without her—a person couldn’t ask for a better sister.”
Surprised by the younger sister’s sudden talkativeness, Jeff looked at Allie as she served a slice of meat to Olivia. “I’m sure that’s true, ma’am.”
Allie smiled and shrugged. “I only do what anyone else would. But tell us about the garden, Jeff. You’ll start planting tomorrow? It’s already so late, I hope we’ll have enough time to get a decent harvest.”
He spooned mashed potatoes onto his dish. “I’ll get the corn in first. It needs the longest growing time, but it shouldn’t take too long to sow, providing that Kansas is still agreeable—”
“Excuse me, Mr. Hicks—” Olivia broke in and turned to her sister. “I forgot to bring out your blackberry jam, dear. Would you mind? It’s so good.”
Althea paused, her fork suspended on its path to her mouth, holding the first bite from her plate. “No, Olivia . . . of course I don’t mind. I’ll get it. Please excuse me, Mr. Hicks.” She smiled apologetically at Jeff and abandoned her untouched meal, pushing herself away from the table to go to the kitchen.
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