If Wishes Were Kisses: Six Beloved Americana Romances, a Collection (Small Town Swains)

by Pamela Morsi

  Pru changed into a drab old work dress whose once rich color had faded to a dull, nondescript brown. She covered her hair with a dark scarf and hurried to the back door.

  She looked toward the Chavis house once more. The light in the old man's bedroom had been extinguished. She grinned devilishly to herself. Gidry Chavis had already gone to bed, and she was setting out to make a fool of him.

  "Let's get going," Sharpy called out to her in a whisper. "If we wait until most everybody has gone to bed, every dog in Chavistown will take up howling at us as we pass."

  She nodded and grabbed up the lantern she kept by the doorway as she stepped outside.

  "No, don't bring any light," Sharpy insisted.

  "Why not?"

  "People can see a lantern a mile away," he said. "And when they do, they get real curious."

  "But how will we see our way?" Pru asked.

  The little boy shrugged. "It ain't so dark that you don't get used to it."

  Pru was uncertain but followed his advice. Certainly they could find their way across town in the darkness, but how on earth would they manage to get into the gin or find that cabinet in the office without seeing their way?

  She almost backed out of the scheme. It was foolhardy and devious. It was not the kind of example to be setting for a young child like Sharpy. And if they were caught, it would be extremely embarrassing. But the thought of seeing Gidry Chavis' face when he found out, as he undoubtedly would, that the Harvest Moon Dance had been gaily lit by his own Japanese lanterns was worth the chance.

  With a shrug of acceptance she extinguished the lantern.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Gidry stood at his father's window, quiet and watchful. Pru came out of her house, carrying her lantern as she always did. He expected her to make her way immediately to the milk shed. That's where she met her lover, that's where she engaged in her illicit affair. That’s where...

  The image of the pornographic postcard filled his brain, but the beautiful nude temptress in his imagination was no stranger. Her face was that of Prudence Belmont. Sweet, shy Prudence Belmont.

  It infuriated him. It aroused him as well.

  His brow furrowed as he watched the yard next door. Pru did not hurry to the milk shed. She seemed to be standing, talking to someone right there in her yard.

  Was it her lover?

  Gidry's heart pounded as if he had just rim uphill a half mile.

  When the light abruptly went out, he knew something was going on. In the vague shadows of moonlight, they appeared to be leaving together by the front gate. He glanced at his father, asleep in the bed, and then, slamming his Stetson upon his head, he was out the door.

  He encountered Aunt Hen at the foot of the stairs.

  "Good heavens, Gidry, where are you off to?"

  "Can you stay with Papa a while longer tonight, Aunt Hen?" he asked. "There's a man I've got to meet."

  He barely waited for the old woman's nod before he was out the door. He couldn't let them get too far ahead of him.

  Gidry ran as far as the street and easily spotted them. They were clinging to the shadows, especially her companion, but he could follow their movement.

  He made his way along the tree lined side of the street himself, deliberately keeping his steps quiet and at a half a block distance. He didn't want to be detected. He didn't want them to know that he was following them.

  The two made their way down the streets. In the dim moonlight he tried to make the two of them out more clearly. In one break in the trees, he glimpsed Pru clearly. Her lover less so. He seemed a good deal shorter than she. Pru was a tall woman, of course. Probably taller than a lot of men in town. Gidry stood several inches higher than most men and was proud of the fact.

  The short fellow certainly seemed to know his way around town in the darkness. He unerringly led Pru around every pothole and stumble stone in their path as they skirted the edges of the business district.

  At one point they slipped through a back gate. Gidry hurried to follow them without hesitation. They went through the garden and across the yard of Judge Ramey's house. It was as if the short fellow did this all the time. He skirted the ornamental fishpond and knew exactly which picket was loose in the far fence. He held it aside, and Pru slipped through. Gidry did so himself only a minute later to find himself within inches of Whitstone's carriage house.

  Walking sideways, he eased himself around the building and into a deserted back alley, where he spotted them once more. They had picked up the pace considerably, and Gidry had to step lively to keep up with them.

  He was completely lost. He had lived in Chavistown all his life. He roamed the area in daylight as a child and stumbled through in the night as a disagreeable youth, but these dark passageways were as familiar to him as the surface of the moon.

  It was at the next cross street that he realized they were between Second and Third Avenues near Santa Fe. The gin was in sight. Gidry was astounded. They had avoided the light and activity of the courthouse square completely. And he had left her house only minutes before. If he'd known this shortcut, he'd have made it to and from work a good deal faster than typically.

  The galvanized metal of the cotton gin shone brightly in the light sliver of moon in the sky. They were on the back side of the building, the side that was most overgrown in tall grass and sage bushes.

  Gidry expected them to circle around the entire block toward their ultimate destination. He could not have been more surprised when the two of them stepped up to the side of the building. The little short fellow deftly peeled back one sheet of tin that appeared to the naked eye to be nailed down exactly like every other sheet.

  Gidry watched in astonishment at the two scrambled their way inside his building. He stood staring in disbelief for a long moment. Had her lover wanted to show her where he worked? What was there to see in the darkness? Were they there to pour soap in the gin stands or to commit some other type of vandalism? Not likely. Did they have some sort of fetish and wish to perform an illicit act on the gin floor?

  Gidry's eyes narrowed with displeasure. They had better not. Gidry was not the kind of man who was quick to fight, and the fellow seemed about half his size, but he thought he could cheerfully pound the man into a greasy spot upon the floor.

  He did not follow the two through the loose sheeting on the back wall but rather walked around the gin to the front door. He quietly fitted the key into the new padlock and opened the place up. He stepped inside into total darkness. How could anybody see anything, he wondered. He would never be able to find them unless he tripped over them, he thought.

  It was at that moment when he heard them tread above him. They were in his office. He was incredulous. They were in his office! He decided to tear up the stairs and confront them. Unfortunately, he had no idea where the stairs might be.

  He picked up the lantern hung by the doorway and lit it. The matches were in a small box on the ledge next to it. With one flick of the match against his thumbnail he lit the wick. A bright yellow glow encircled him as he adjusted the burner and lit the wick.

  He heard the steps above him in the office go still. He glanced toward the stairway. The lanternlight must have shone in the doorway. There were some excited muffled whispers and then a scrambling.

  "Run!" he heard a young voice call out clearly. They were going to try to get away.

  Gidry raced toward the stairs, only to be nearly knocked aside by Sharpy Kilroy hurling himself down the stairs. The boy landed upon the floor, rolled to his feet, and stared at Gidry like an animal, caught in the light. The two stood frozen for a long moment and then, like a frightened deer, the boy startled away through the darkness of the gin.

  "Sharpy!" he called after the child sternly.

  His word didn't even create a hesitation. He could hear the rustle as the boy made his way back across the deserted gin floor and the ring of metal as he exited through the loosened piece of tin in the back wall.

  Gidry turned to gla
nce up the stairway. At the top, in the doorway to his office stood Prudence Belmont looking white as a sheet.

  "What in the devil is going on here?" he asked.

  Her expression turned momentarily sheepish and then defensive. Without answering, she gave her back to him and reentered his office.

  Exasperated, Gidry went after her, taking the stairs two steps at a time.

  He entered the doorway to find her standing in the middle of the room. The cabinet was open and much of its contents were in a hastily discarded pile upon the floor.

  "What is going on here?" he asked in a tone he knew from experience was cold enough to make hardened cowboys quiver.

  She turned to face him, her chin held high. Her gaze defiant.

  "I came for the Japanese lanterns," she answered simply.

  Gidry's brow furrowed momentarily puzzled. A further glance at the littered contents upon the floor revealed brightly colored paper with long diaphanous strands.

  Gidry hung the lantern on the hook next to the door and folded his arms across his chest obstinately. He gave the woman before him a long, thoughtful look. The yellow glow of light did not reach all the way into the coiners of the room, but illuminated the two people who stared at each other. Beyond them there was nothing, no one else.

  "You came here to rob me?"

  It was a statement more than a question.

  She did not reply.

  "I heard there was a problem with thievery in this town," he said. "But I never thought that group included small children and the president of the Ladies' Rose and Garden Society."

  "I do not consider it thievery," she answered tartly.

  "Oh? Then what do you consider it?"

  "I was... I was merely borrowing the Japanese lanterns," she said rushing through her words. "We need them for our Harvest Moon Dance. I knew that you would not be using them for any purpose in the near future. As we have been neighbors for years, I simply assumed I would be allowed to borrow them."

  Gidry used one finger to kick the Stetson a bit higher on his forehead.

  "You are here to borrow them," he repeated.

  'Yes."

  "In the middle of the night, with no permission and no lantern, sneaking into the back of the gin through a loose metal sheet, you came to borrow them."

  “Yes."

  "Did you intend to return them the same way?"

  "I... ah ..."

  She hesitated.

  "Probably not," she finally admitted.

  Gidry shook his head and tutted at her as if she was an errant child.

  "This kind of borrowing, Miss Belmont, can, I believe, lead a woman to an unpleasant stay in the county jail."

  “You will not have me sent to jail," she said with complete certainty. "It would be far too much of a scandal."

  He raised an eyebrow and looked her up and down.

  "I have never been afraid to cause a scandal, Miss Belmont. Surely you recall that."

  In the dim yellow glow of the lantern he couldn't tell if she was blushing, but she did appear disconcerted.

  "My aunt would never forgive you if you had me sent to jail," she suggested.

  He thought about that for a moment.

  "I don't know," he said. "Aunt Hen has always had a very forgiving nature. And she has forever had a soft spot in her heart for me."

  "There would be no purpose in sending me to jail," Pru insisted. "Everyone in town would be angry at you. And at the very worst I would be free in ten days."

  "Everyone in town is already angry at me," he pointed out. "And ten days would be enough to see that you are not able to put on a Harvest Moon Dance."

  "You wouldn't!"

  Gidry shrugged deliberately.

  "Just by stopping me, you wouldn't stop the Ladies of the Rose and Garden Society."

  "If you want to kill a snake, you cut off the head."

  Her eyes widened, and her mouth dropped open in shock.

  Intoxicated with the power of the moment, Gidry allowed her to puff and haw for several anxious, affronted moments.

  "Of course, you could convince me not to mention it," he said

  She looked up at him and swallowed bravely.

  "How would I convince you?" she asked.

  "You could try bribery," he said.

  "Bribery?"

  "You've already learned breaking and entering, contributing to the delinquency of a minor and robbery," he pointed out. "I think bribery is next on the list of criminals' behavior."

  "I suppose you want me to give up the Harvest Moon Dance," she said.

  "Would you?" he asked.

  "Never!"

  "Then I'll have to think of something that I want equally as much," he told her.

  Deliberately he stepped closer. The scent of her was familiar, enticing. Roses. Yes, she'd always smelled like roses.

  He stood inches from her now, staring down into her wary, upturned face.

  "Kiss me," he said quietly.

  "What?"

  "Kiss me. A little bribe from your lips will suit me just fine."

  Her expression was sweet confusion. She lowered her eyes hastily.

  Gidry clasped her face in his hands. He could feel the heat in her cheeks as he raised her eyes to him once more.

  "It’s no great sacrifice, Pru," he told her. "It's not as if it’s a thing you've never done before."

  She was trembling.

  "Kiss me, or I call the constable," he whispered.

  The mention of law enforcement seemed to steel her determination. She raised up on tiptoes and quickly pecked a set of pursed lips against his own.

  Gidry eased his hands around her waist and held her fast.

  "Now, Pru, you could do better than that eight years ago," he said. "And I'm sure you've learned a trick or two since."

  He pulled her into his arms, feeling the soft, full-length of her against his body. Bending his head to one side, he lowered his mouth upon hers. She opened for him as eagerly as she had eight years ago. He reveled in the taste of her. The indefinable spice that had lingered in his memory for eight long years. It was a taste of love. No woman, nowhere, at any time, had ever offered him that.

  "Oh yes," he whispered against her lips before he deepened the kiss, using his tongue to tease and tempt her.

  Her hands, which had lain dormant at her sides, were suddenly caressing his weary shoulders. Then featherlike fingers moved upward to bury themselves in his hair.

  His hat fell off.

  The unexpected calamity startled them both. Simultaneously they pulled back from the embrace and stared at each other.

  Gidry's pulses were pounding like a racehorse's. His senses were heightened and his breathing rapid. He gazed down at her upturned face craving more, aching for more. Her lips were still parted and her eyes glazed with what he recognized as sexual desire. He could have her. Right here. Right now. He could press her back to this dusty floor and take his pleasure as he'd failed to do eight years before. She hadn't refused him then. She wouldn't refuse him now.

  His body urged recklessness. His mind counseled caution. Reluctantly, he heeded the latter.

  Gidry loosened her from his embrace. His hands lingered upon her waist. He was not ready to release her entirely.

  “I've never been bribed before," he said quietly. "I found it to be a highly pleasurable experience."

  Pru was embarrassed now, clearly embarrassed by her own unanticipated response.

  "Let me go," she said, trying to pull away from him.

  "Just a minute," he told her, lowering his hands until they rested high upon her hipbones. "I have something to tell you first."

  She looked up into his eyes again startled.

  "You may borrow my Japanese lanterns for your Harvest Moon Dance," he told her. "And in the future, Miss Belmont, if there is anything that you want from me"—he pulled her tight against the front of his trousers, certain that she could not mistake his meaning or the evidence of his arousal—"anything, you only ha
ve to ask."

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  It was as if heaven itself were smiling proudly upon the Harvest Moon Dance. The morning dawned bright and cloudless, and a pleasant westerly breeze commenced in the early afternoon. By three o'clock every boll of cotton in Chavis County and its environs had been ginned and baled and the horrible noisy commotion that had been plaguing town residents for days ceased abruptly into blessed silence.

  Pru was fidgety and short tempered. She was certain that most people chalked it up to anxiety and nervousness about the outcome of her speech. She only wished it were that simple.

  The grounds around the church were gaily decorated. A hundred Japanese lanterns were hung around the dance floor and above the makeshift stage glowing with celebratory light. Every man and woman who beheld their splendor became all curiosity as to how Prudence had managed to come up with them.

  For her part, Pru wasn't talking. She didn't even like to think about the night at the cotton gin. She'd behaved too stupidly to be believed. Trying to steal the lanterns was unconscionable. Involving Milton was even worse. And to then throw herself at Gidry Chavis was almost too much of a shame to be borne.

  You want me to kiss you?

  Pru had been incredulous. It was a bribe she'd never expected. And if she had any sense at all, she would have called the constable herself.

  Kiss me.

  Somehow at the time the words had seemed soft and sweet and seductive. He had said it was no sacrifice, but it would have been better if she'd been tossed into a flaming abyss. The touch of his hands upon her face was enough to overcome all her resistance.

  It's not as if it's a thing you've never done before, he'd whispered. But it had been a wholly new experience, nothing like her eight-year-old memories or even the fantasy of a lonely dark night.

  Gidry's hands upon her waist had eased her close and set her trembling. She could not recall his words, it was not at all what he had said, but the way he uttered them as warm and slow dripping as maple syrup. She wanted to taste that syrup, savor it with her lips and her tongue. And when she did, she found it hotter, sweeter, and infinitely more suited to her appetite than she had ever imagined.