The picture forming in Jeff’s mind was of a flinty, bitter man who enslaved his own child and probably browbeat his wife. Hell, no wonder she didn’t come out of her melancholia.
“One day, I convinced Mama to get dressed and come for a walk with me. I’d fed Olivia and put her down for a nap, so I had a little time before I had to start dinner. It was spring and I thought that getting out on a nice April day would be good for her.”
Jeff listened as Allie went on, telling the story of how she walked her mother across a fallow field down to the creek bottom. The cottonwoods were leafing out and wild flowers were blooming along the edge of the clear, gurgling stream.
Allie stared at the lantern flame on the window sill, lost in another time. “I sat my mother down on a blanket I’d brought with us. I can still see her hair, sparkling in the sun. It was the same color as mine, I think. She didn’t talk much, so it was almost like being alone. Then I saw the wild flowers. Violets—they were violets. They were so pretty, I wanted to pick some for her. I hoped they’d cheer her up and make her smile again. The flowers were scattered up and down the banks, and they were so small it took me a while to gather enough to make a nice bouquet.”
The tears that had been gathering in Allie’s eyes began to flow in earnest now, falling in droplets on her tightly folded hands. “When I turned around to look for her she was gone. I didn’t realize how much time had passed since I’d last checked on her. I still don’t know, but it didn’t seem like much. One minute she was sitting on the blanket, the next— Oh, God, I searched everywhere along that creek. I was afraid that maybe she’d fallen in. But there was no sign of her. Nothing.” She tipped her head down and closed her eyes.
Jeff stared at Allie, her head bowed and her hands folded like a sorrowful penitent’s, and his heart squeezed in his chest. She looked like a damned soul sitting in that chair, waiting for God’s hand to strike her down. He didn’t even care if he heard the rest of her story. He wanted to tell her it didn’t matter what she had done, she had paid for it many times over. But he’d asked her to tell him about it, and he had to make himself listen.
“What did you do?”
“I ran to the house, hoping she’d gone back inside. But I checked every room, even the closets. She wasn’t there. Then I remembered that sometimes, before Olivia came, she’d liked to feed the barn cats. They never let her get close but she’d leave kitchen scraps for them.” She wadded up the tails of her shawl in her fists, and recounted to Jeff the ghastly discovery she’d made in the barn, so like the day with the dummy, but a thousand times more horrific. Listening to her, Jeff felt the hair on the back of his neck rise, and despite the heat, shivers flew down his back and arms.
“F-father said it was my fault. He screamed at me—it was the only time—and he damned me to hell for lollygagging. He said I killed his wife and Olivia’s mother. I should have been watching her instead of frittering away my time and attention looking for flowers. We took Mama to the undertaker in town. Then when we got back, h-he locked me in the barn. He’d make sure he taught me a lesson, one I wouldn’t forget, by God. I begged and cried to get out and pounded on the door—I was s-so scared, so scared— But he left me in there until morning. And after that, every time he thought I was bad, he locked me in the barn! Oh, God, I hated him for it!” She appealed to Jeff, as if seeking answers or some explanation from him so that she might understand. “Why did he do that to me? I was only eight years old!”
She wept bitter tears and wore such a wild expression that even now Jeff feared for her sanity in dredging up these old memories. It was all too clear to him now, her fear of the barn, her zealous attention to her parents graves, her slavish devotion to her sister. He gripped her clenched hands in his, thinking that if Amos Ford weren’t already dead, he’d take great pleasure in seeing the man horsewhipped. And Jeff, fool that he was, had planted a row of violets in the garden, hoping to please her. “Allie, it’s all right now. All right. And I’m sorry about the violets in the garden—I didn’t know. I just wanted to make you happy.” God, he was babbling like she was. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t kill your mother—you see that now, don’t you?”
She went on, though, as if Jeff hadn’t spoken, purging anger and demons that had plagued her since she was a child. “On his deathbed he made me promise to take care of Olivia, his darling Olivia. I’ve stayed by her, believing she was sick and helpless, that she needed me. It was the least I could do to atone for the terrible wrong I’d committed. To find out that she has tricked me all this time, pretending to be sick, that she was the one who hung that dummy in the barn— ” She looked at him with such anguish and bewilderment in her eyes, Jeff felt his own throat grow tight with emotion. “I know my father hated me. He always made me feel like an outsider, and he never forgave me, not even at the last moment of his life. But Olivia must hate me too, to do those things!”
Jeff needed to hold her, to comfort her and himself. Shy about letting her see the tears gathering behind his own eyelids, he grabbed her shoulders and pulled her off the chair into his embrace. The corn shuck mattress rustled as Allie fell against him on the bed and sobbed as if her heart were broken. He swallowed the hard knot in his throat and rocked her, pressing her head to his chest while he stroked her silky hair. Silently, he cursed both Amos and Olivia Ford. God, Allie had had no love in her life at all.
“No, honey, it’s not hate, exactly. Olivia isn’t capable of considering anyone else’s feelings but her own. She’s spoiled and used to getting her own way. Like I said, I think she’s trying to make sure you won’t leave her. But what she’s done is wrong. And you did not kill your mother.” Jeff lifted his head and stared through the window at the moon crossing the midsummer night sky. Wes Cooper’s young, battered face appeared in his memory, bringing with it a dim realization. “Some people can’t be saved no matter how we try.”
“You don’t think it was my fault?” Her words were muffled with her cheek pressed to his chest.
“Hell no! Allie, your father did a lousy thing, punishing you for your mother’s death—a child can’t be held responsible for the actions of an adult. I guess when it comes down to it, we’re not really responsible for anyone’s actions but our own.”
“But I was supposed to watch after her and—”
“Yes, and you said yourself that you were just eight years old. It sounds like she was so lost and unhappy, she would have found the opportunity no matter what. If not then, maybe later. Who knows, your love and attention might have prevented it from happening sooner.”
She sat up and looked at him, a desperate gleam of hope for absolution in her teary eyes. Ironic that she should seek it from him, of all people. “Oh—do you really think so?” She turned her face to the doorway and her brow wrinkled. “I missed her very much. I think it started long before she died. The mother I knew disappeared and had been replaced by a silent, despondent stranger.”
Jeff felt such remorse for Allie, he pulled her back into his arms, barely aware that only a sheet separated his nakedness from her. He couldn’t think of a plausible, comforting comment to make, so he did the only thing he could think of and held her close.
No one—certainly not Amos or Olivia Ford—had apparently given any thought to the fact that Allie had lost her mother, too, and the nurturing that any child should have had. But it occurred to Jeff. “If I had the power, Allie, I swear I’d turn back the clock and make it all different.”
He held her and stroked her back. She was fine-boned and delicate under his touch.
At this moment, it felt as if he were doing a very important job, taking care of Allie. She was independent and capable, but she had a tender vulnerability that made him want to protect her. What a hell of a tangle their lives were in, though. Even after everything that Olivia had done, he doubted that Allie was likely to abandon her charge. Her sense of responsibility was lifelong and too ingrained to turn her back on. He’d move on at the end of summer and always wonder
what could have been if they had met at a different time and place. Allie and her kindness would be just a memory he could warm himself with on empty nights.
But for now, time seemed to stop here in this little room, and it was safe to let himself realize that he’d fallen in love with her.
She began to quiet in his arms. Either his words gave her comfort, or more likely, she’d simply worn herself out. It felt so good to hold her, though, almost tantalizing. He had to remind himself that she had come to him as a friend, and that she had no one else to turn to. But hell, he was just a man, and as she shifted a bit, he was again painfully aware that only a couple flimsy layers of fabric separated their bodies and bare skin.
His thoughts returned to his dream of Allie’s smooth, pale skin and long, slender thigh lying along his, and for the first time in years, he thought he might find his own soul again in Allie Ford’s warmth. But what right did he have to seek it? Hadn’t she given him more than he deserved? Because of her he was able to stand straight again. His hands were steady, and he knew the satisfaction of doing a day’s hard work and doing it well. She didn’t owe him more than that, and she deserved a better man than him. But if time had truly stopped and tomorrow were not coming, he’d tell her she’d stolen his heart. He’d get down on his knees and beg her . . .
Allie rested against Jeff, and her sobs slowed to sniffles as a kind of relief stole over her. Just the sound of his voice was comforting to her. How strange and yet how right it felt to be in this man’s arms. And despite all that had happened, the weight on her shoulders seemed a bit lighter. Maybe it was just because she’d finally gotten to tell somebody the secrets she’d carried in her heart for years, ones that she had hidden even from herself. And not only had Jeff not judged her, he had defended her. No one had ever done that. No one before had even asked what she thought.
But now that the storm raging within her had quieted, she felt a little awkward. What must he think of her, a hysterical woman who’d barged in on his privacy? His handsome face was blank, as if his thoughts had traveled beyond their conversation, and his eyes were dark and unfathomable in the shadows. The two of them were scarcely decent, he with no shirt and in bed, for heaven’s sake, and she wearing only a shawl and a nightgown.
She pulled away from him and sat up, wiping her eyes on the handkerchief she pulled from her nightgown pocket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you up from a sound sleep and cry all over you. Thank you for listening and, well, everything.” She stood and adjusted her shawl. It was really too hot in here now to wear it, but it was all that covered her gown. “I’d better go back to the house.”
“Allie, stop apologizing. You have nothing to be sorry for. Nothing. Anyway, I wasn’t sleeping soundly.” He glanced up at her from under sandy brows, and the heat in his eyes said a hundred things that his husky voice did not. “Stay . . . please . . . I don’t want you to go.”
Allie swallowed. She had no knowledge of men or the mysteries that existed between a man and a woman. But without being told, she knew what he wanted. It both thrilled and frightened her.
“N-no?”
Keeping his eyes on her, he shook his head slightly. “No.”
She didn’t take the hand he held out to her but wordlessly she groped behind her for the chair and sat down again. Her knees bumped the edge of the corn shuck mattress where he sat with his back propped against the pillow. Her mind and heart were galloping neck and neck, at top speed; the first asked if she knew what she was doing, the other urged her to ignore the question.
Though she’d been in this room for the better part of an hour already, she just now really noticed Jeff’s appearance. In fact, she noticed everything. Could this possibly be the same man who’d appeared at her doorstep in May, disheveled and derelict? He’d regained the natural grace she’d noticed long ago. His sun-streaked hair was sleep-tousled, and his shoulders were wider than she had realized. The faint shadow of his beard outlined his firm jaw and chin. Lean, hard muscle defined the breadth of his chest and the strength in his arms. His flat belly bore a narrow strip of hair down its center that disappeared beneath the sheet that barely topped his hipbones. Dear God, but he was a beautiful man, the most handsome one she had ever seen. Not that she had seen all that many.
Her attention moved downward, over his pelvis, over the shape of his long legs beneath the sheet, and back to his hips again. When Allie realized where her eyes had strayed to, her face burned and her heart thudded in her rib cage. His very maleness drew her, and she felt womanly in a way that she had known only in his presence. She realized that they had been moving toward this moment since the day she met him.
Jeff swung his legs over the side of the bed, the sheet still wound around his middle. “Allie,” he whispered, and took her hand to press a kiss into her palm. “I owe you a lot, and I’ve got nothing in this world to give you. I used to be a man of some standing. Now, well, you know what happened to me. A lot of it was my fault, and some of it was just fate and bad luck. I don’t know what’s coming tomorrow, honey. But there’s tonight—there’s still tonight. If you’ll have me.”
Modesty tugged at her. She should refuse. She should demand an apology and when she had it, storm back to the house in a huff of outraged female virtue. Society’s conventions of decency would require that she do so.
But society’s conventions had been cold comfort to her all her life. Far stronger than modesty was the yearning she had to share a closeness with Jeff that allowed nothing else to get in the way. No bad memories or silent indictments haunting her from the burying ground, no Olivia, no blame for past deeds or failures. She didn’t need to be the mother or the servant. Instead, she would be a woman. Looking into his lean, handsome face, she saw sincerity. He was offering her the chance to feel close to someone for the first time in her life, perhaps for the only time.
“Your past doesn’t matter to me, Jeff. I think you’re a good man, with a good heart, and I can’t ask for more than that.” Meeting his searing green eyes, she returned the kiss on the work-roughened hand that held hers. “I’ll have you.”
Jeff closed his eyes and sighed, the way a condemned man might if he was granted a last wish. Then he gazed at her for a long moment. “Come to me, then.” He pulled her out of the chair to sit beside him on the bed, and her shawl fell away. Touching gentle fingertips to her bruised cheek, he followed them with soft kisses that brushed her ear and hairline. Pleasurable shivers flew down her arms and over her scalp, and shyly, she turned her lips to his.
His kiss was more demanding than it had been this afternoon. She had been unwilling to stop him then—now, with the exquisite feeling of his lips on hers, she put her arms around his neck and gave herself up like a wanton. Fiercely he took her mouth as he plunged his hands into her hair and held her, threading his fingers through the strands. When she felt his tongue tease her lips apart, her breath came faster as if trying to keep pace with her thundering heart.
He smelled of the wind-dried bedding and of sun and an essence that was his alone, making Allie think of the bare elements of earth and sky. Pulling back, he ran his hands up and down her bare arms while his gaze touched her lightly. Then he reached for the kerosene lamp and turned down its wick, plunging the little room into darkness and the dim, gray-white light of the moon.
He threw back the sheet and pulled her onto the bed with him. In the feeble light she glimpsed a dark, imposing shadow low on his torso at the juncture of his long legs. With detached surprise she realized that he had nothing on at all. He was naked.
Jeff propped himself up on one elbow and looked down into her face. “Allie, you’re as pretty as a red rose in the snow.”
Her emotions choked off any reply she might have made. No one had ever said something so nice to her. Prim Althea Ford, one of “those crazy Ford sisters,” lay in the arms of a beautiful, naked man who found beauty in her as well, and she reveled in it. He followed his compliment with another deep kiss. Hot and slick and insistent, i
t shook her to the very core. She reached up to touch his ribs and her hand brushed his bare hip. Growing more daring, she caressed his hard-muscled buttock and he groaned faintly.
His fingers whispered over her breast, stopping at the row of tiny buttons closing her nightgown. With poorly concealed impatience, he unfastened them, all the while laying a line of kisses up her throat and over her jaw. His warm breath in her ear raised goose bumps on her arms, and when he ran his tongue over her lobe, she shuddered.
At last her nightgown lay open to Jeff’s touch and she froze, waiting, hoping that he would touch her again the way he had that afternoon. Instead, he leaned over her and caught her nipple in his mouth, lightly suckling at her breast. Allie gasped at the intense sensation and sank her fingers into his hair. Bolts of electricity seemed to shoot directly from her breast to her womb, and an aching hunger that she had never known before began to simmer in her.
After he treated her other nipple to the same attention, she arched against him, a small moan rising from her throat. He smoothed his hands over her legs, pushing her nightgown higher with each pass. Finally, with a muttered curse, he gripped the hem and pulled the garment off over her head and flung it to the end of the bed. Allie lay as naked as Jeff. He pulled her up against the length of his warm body, and they embraced skin to skin, their limbs tangling.
“Allie, God, you feel so good—like cream, like velvet. I’ve lain here every night imagining you with me, in my arms. But I never knew it would feel this good.”
She’d had no idea he’d given her any such thought at all. “Jeff . . . ” She could say nothing more, but she didn’t need to. With some of her shyness stripped away by the desire he kindled in her, she reached out to touch him, to feel the silky hair scattered across his chest, the smooth, hard muscle in his arms, the ladders of his ribs. His erection, pulsing and hot, pressed insistently against her thigh.
Allie's Moon Page 21
