“You don’t haveta get sassy with me, young lady.”
The words came out as more teasing than warning, which astonished her no end. What was going on here? Had the man been suddenly visited by angels from above?
“You check with your aunt to see what stuff she wants you to do. ’Bout time she gets some help runnin’ this place. Too much for one woman to deal with.”
“But she has Lydia when she needs—”
“Tain’t enough. Soph, whaddya want this gal to take care of?”
The table was cleared, the few leftovers scraped into a pail for chickens and hogs; Sophie was already reaching for the dish towel. “Lots of vegetables still to pick and work up from the garden,” she suggested. “If you could take a basket, Vic, and start on that, I would appreciate it.”
Also, being relegated to the garden would keep her out of the way of her vindictive sister, who had not forgiven her—and probably never would—for that unplanned rendezvous at the creek with a man supposedly on his way to the altar.
“I can do that.” She sounded almost offended. “All you had to do was ask, Auntie.”
“Maybe you coulda been payin’ attention and noticed on your own that it needed doin’,” advised her father with a telling glance, as he wrung out the dishcloth to dry on the drain board.
Vickie bit down on her overzealous tongue before she snapped back too hastily, and with too much venom. What was this? Was he trying to absolve himself of the shortcoming for which he was accusing her?
“Let it go, Riley.” Sophie reached up to put away the last hot, clean plate onto a cupboard shelf. “Honey, have you eaten anything?”
“Yes, ma’am. Had a biscuit with ham before I went outside. But thanks for asking. I’ll get to work now.” Pausing for a quick hug, she disappeared out the back door into golden sunshine splattered with dust motes.
Just in time, too. Watching, through the side window, as Vickie wended her way along the path of roses and peonies and shrubby bridal wreath, under the giant oak and sycamore, toward the kitchen garden, Sophie saw her niece barely settled with basket and scissors before the light tap of leather slippers could be heard as Jessica entered the room.
“Good morning, Aunt Sophie, Papa,” she coolly greeted them.
The relationship between her and the rest of the family currently resided on less than cordial terms. Probably there would be no thawing of this frozen tundra until the marriage took place as a permanent fixture and she was sure of her position. Jessica needed no other drastic changes rising up to spoil her plans.
She looked as puffed-up and pretty as if she were planning to attend a church service instead of indulging in her normal routine for a day at home. Something shiny, in azure blue, with full hoops that swung gently back and forth as she walked; the bodice was decorated with filmy white gauze that bared her shoulders and throat. Her hair, decked out with a silk rose, cascaded down her back in long feminine ringlets that simply begged to be twirled through a masculine hand.
Riley, drying his hands, gave her an appraising scan. “Goin’ someplace special?”
“Not at all. But Sam sent a note that he would come to visit this morning, so naturally I wanted to look my best for him.”
“This to make up for his not comin’ over the other night when you expected him?”
“I suppose so.”
“Huh. Ain’t so goldarned dependable, is he?”
“He’s quite dependable,” Jess flared in response. “It’s only that—well, as you know, we’ve had a slight falling out, and he needs to understand that there are some—boundaries—to this engagement of ours. Things he might do that would be—off limits.” Her lips tightened into an unlovely line. “He also needs to make better work of an apology to me.”
Sophie, wishing only not to be quite so involved in this contretemps, sighed. “Have you eaten, Jessie?”
“No, but that’s all right. I’m not really hungry. I’ll just have a cup of coffee for now. Perhaps Sam will take me to town for dinner.” Her expression brightened slightly, in anticipation. “Did one of you ring the bell for some particular reason?”
Retrieving his cane for extra support, Riley began taking a few measured steps in the direction of his study. “Yeah. Figure you may’s well keep busy till your knight in shinin’ armor shows up. Sophie has got some projects you can do. Sure wouldn’t wanna muss up your fancy duds, girl, but I’m sure she’ll find somethin’ genteel and ladylike you can sink your teeth into.”
“Projects?” The fair brows drew together in a disapproving frown. “What kind of projects? And why?”
“B’cause,” said Riley, as the final authority, “we’ve been lettin’ your aunt down with the chores around this place. All of us, and that’s includin’ me. Time we take some of the load off her shoulders. Whaddya say, Soph? Some needlework, maybe? Or copyin’ recipes? Or dustin’ and sweepin’ the parlor? That shouldn’t take up too much time, or energy.”
“I hardly think—”
“That’s just it, Jessica. You hardly think. Time you started. S’pose that young man of yours wants to be hitched up to a dunderhead?”
Anger did not become her. High color washed unevenly over her cheekbones, and clenched teeth set her jaw into an almost masculine squareness. It was quite possible that she was wondering, though, just how far she could oppose her father while still living under his roof, subservient to his wishes, subject to the control of his purse strings.
“Sophie, I’m headin’ into my office, gonna get some paperwork done.” He turned to his sister with a rare small smile. It seemed that her admission, that short while ago, had served as an epiphany for him; the blinders jerked away from his eyes, and he was now seeing her in a new light, and wanting to ease the hard road she had been walking. “When Sam gets here, I wanna talk with him and both of you, so’s we can discuss a few things.”
“Talk with him? But I just told you, I’d like him to take me into town. I need to do some shopping, and he can buy me dinner at—”
“Better hold off on that, Jess.” Although Riley spoke to his daughter with a tinge of impatience, he used not so much sarcasm as usual. “You got expensive tastes, and that boy don’t have enough money to rub two nickels together. And you can’t always count on gettin’ an inheritance. Mark my words; it’d be wise to start savin’ what you can, just in case.”
As he shambled away, leaning on his cane, from behind him came a gasp of outrage and the stamp of a slippered foot.
“What is he talking about, Aunt Sophie? No inheritance, is that what he means? Does he plan on leaving everything to that holier-than-thou sister of mine? I’ll fight, that’s what I’ll do. And why does he always treat me like an orphan child? Who would be—”
The rest of it was lost upon him. Still smiling, he closed his study door upon the ruckus. Despite his newly made resolution to improve the situation of this household, he knew he would find, on occasion, that life for him went far more easily when he could just slip away and hide.
* * * * *
Sam arrived at the Yellowstar about mid-morning burdened by a slightly truculent, slightly defiant mood. Not the best frame of mind in which to meet with his so-called beloved, and make the required apology. Would she demand he go down on his knees? Perhaps perform his penance in public, instead of in private?
And what did such trivialities matter, anyway? Weren’t there bigger, harsher things in this world to worry about, than having to grovel over one little meaningless kiss?
Trouble was, he was coming to realize that that kiss, and all the apparently innocent horseplay that had preceded it, might not be as meaningless as Jessica hoped.
He’d been back from that godawful confinement in the north for—what, two months now? Three? He’d lost track of time, having no need for a calendar to mark off the passage of days.
He knew only that the giant gaping hole of his memory was slowly, gradually, beginning to fill in. Every so often some recollection that had been missing c
ame bobbing to the surface, tying other recollections together, and he could realize, Ah, so that was how such-and-such had moved into play.
In the dead of night, in the sound of sleep, he might stir; and a lost detail would be added to a host of others claiming precedence.
Odd, how that happened. It gave him hope that someday, somehow, he might completely recover all that he had thought was gone forever. Even now, that recent half-serious, half-playful junket in the offshoot of Vestigo River had brought forth remembrance of times past. He and Vickie Clark, during their rambunctious childhood, had frolicked through the woods, and the land joining Marsden and Yellowstar, like two high-spirited puppies. No forewarning that such carnage and conflagration as the War Between the States would come along to engulf them within a very short time.
What lay in those forgotten years, which might have bound him to one other than Jessica, with whom he felt no natural binding whatsoever? Would those unaccounted pieces of the puzzle that made up his mind ever fall into place, and present him whole and strong once more?
At least what might still be lacking mentally was being physically replenished, thanks to his mother, with her care and unceasing worry for her damaged son. None of which was eased by his slogging, dripping trudge up the stairs of the cabin’s back porch, following his plunge and subsequent soaking, and her dismay at his condition.
“Those Clarks again!” she had muttered.
With tightened lips, she had scurried him into the bedroom to change. Then she had insisted that he, only recently recovering, sit out in the fresh air and soak up some sunshine to his very marrow. Maybe with an afghan over his knees. And a cup of hot coffee at his elbow.
Sam had had to beg her to stop fussing.
Having survived—somewhat to his surprise—and come home, he regretted sometimes that he and Matthew had not yet grown closer. For the moment they were separated not only by age and experiences undergone, but also by family dynamics. He wondered if Matt ever resented the extra coddling provided by their mother, and the unstinting approval afforded by their father with this advantageous marriage to be finalized.
His brother was not a plodder, by any means. Nor was he lacking in intelligence or compassion. But he did have a single-minded determination about him—finish this now, not later, and do a rip-roarin’ job at it, with no deviation from the task at hand—with which Sam, and his faulty memory, could not entirely sympathize.
Thus, here he was, appearing on the mend, in his fresh-washed, line-dried blue chambray shirt and brown cord trousers. The big, brawny frame upon which his clothing had hung like a wet sack, just after his return, was daily regaining health and heartiness, to add flesh to gaunt bones and muscle to scrawny sinew.
He’d bathed and dressed behind the security of his closed bedroom door. Seeing in his mirrored reflection only that his beard had been cleanly scraped away, and that his unruly hair had been combed into wetted-down submission, Sam’s modesty kept him from noticing a pure and utter attractiveness that could draw any interested maiden’s eye.
There was also the sense of humor, sadly lacking these past couple of years, but little by little being restored to him; and a quiet courage, combined with gentlemanly manners. All the way around, an appealing and agreeable package; would he but realize it.
Right now, as he pulled Blackjack’s reins to a slow halt at the hitching rail, he was concerned only with his reception at this house. Several visits later, and he still felt itchy and uncomfortable in the presence of all the residents. As if he had a bad case of poison ivy.
He knew one thing, Sam thought somewhat belligerently, climbing down from the saddle: he wasn’t coming here hat in hand, on bended knee, or any other kind of malarkey, taking guff from anybody. Poor he might be, without a pedigree as long as his arm, born on the wrong side of the tracks, so to speak.
But he was a man, with pride in himself, and wants and wishes in his own right.
He would not be walked over, just because he didn’t have money to match that of the heiress he was supposed to be marrying.
Nope. He was loaded for bear.
These Yellowstar people ought to watch their step around him today.
“Good morning, Sam,” said Jessica in a cool, no-nonsense tone, as she opened the front door to his knock.
“H’lo, Jess.” Deferential but not daunted, Sam removed his hat and thoughtfully scraped his boots on the mat before entering.
Ever the considerate hostess, she asked if he would like some refreshment.
“No, thanks.” Pausing in the hallway, cool and breeze-washed by tall shady trees and open windows, he silently debated the possibility of asking for Vickie’s whereabouts. No, no point in making things worse than they already were. He had no desire to rile the volatile temperament of his bride-to-be any further. “I’m fine.”
“Very well, then. Papa would like to speak with us in the library. Then perhaps you and I can have a few private moments of conversation.” Her raised brows and pursed lips showed there would be no “perhaps” about it at all.
Jessica led the way to a spacious room behind the parlor which seemed, as Sam glanced around, to provide all that a semi-invalid might require for daily routine. Nice big desk, only slightly untidy; several chairs, a fireplace, and a settee; and, set off in the corner, nighttime appointments of bed, folding screen, and washstand.
“Sam,” said Riley, looking up expressionlessly, with pen in hand.
“Good day, sir. Hope you’re doin’ well.”
“Better’n some times, I reckon. Have a seat. Jessie, kindly go fetch your aunt, please.”
The “please” might have been an unexpected afterthought, but at least the word was offered. That was more than anyone usually got around here. Hiding her surprise, Jessica slipped away and returned a few minutes later with Sophie in tow.
“Well, Sam.” She smiled at the young man who had risen at her entrance, then took back his perch upon upholstery whose flowered design gave him the appearance of a bull in a china shop—too big, too clumsy, for such a feminine background. “It’s nice to see you again. How’s your mother?”
“Fair to middlin’, ma’am, thank you.”
Riley motioned to the nearby settee. “Ladies, if you will. Sophie, okay to tell these two what’s goin’ on?”
“This does seem to be the day for unburdening. Yes, Riley, pray do so.” She leaned back, almost in a relaxed pose, seemingly content to let him direct the conversation. Time for Riley Clark to take charge of a few vital details, appeared to be her attitude.
Heavy brows drawn together into a frown, her brother began with a basic repetition of what she had told him earlier, over breakfast, and his own reaction to the unsettling news. At the end of that part of the announcement, Jessica gave a gasp of shock and turned to her aunt with an impulsive, but mindful, hug. As if she was wary of physical contact, for fear of doing damage.
“Aunt Sophie! You can’t leave us! Whatever would we do without you here?” The tears sparkling in Jessica’s eyes hinted that more might be going on here than the possibility of a loved one’s departure and permanent absence.
“To my shame, I asked the same thing,” said Riley heavily. “How would we be affected? How would I be affected? But we’re missin’ the bigger point, Jess. This might be a life-or-death decision for my sister. And what’s more important than that? If it’s healthier for her to go back east, and safer, than by gum that’s just what she’s gotta do. You agree?”
A spotless little white handkerchief appeared from where it had been tucked away, inside the girl’s sleeve, to dab delicately at the tears. “Oh, of course, Papa. It’s just—oh, Aunt Sophie, I never realized how much I’d miss you, and how much you mean to me, until this came up out of the blue.”
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