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

by Pamela Morsi

  The feel of his long body against the length of her own was a sensation totally new and shockingly pleasurable. His broad chest, muscled stomach, powerful thighs were pressed in such intimate contact that she was unmistakably aware of his growing arousal.

  He whispered gentle praise against her lips and she would have given him all she had to give. She could not resist touching him, caressing him, exploring the strange geography of the man who held her so gently, as if he feared she would break, yet so firmly it seemed he would never let her go.

  Anything. He had told her with such meaning. You only have to ask.

  The words could have been her own. Pru had thought herself long past carrying her heart upon her sleeve, but a few moments alone in a private, ill lit room and she'd been his for the taking.

  "Mrs. Johnson is arriving with the food. Do you want to supervise the setting of the tables?" Alice asked.

  "No," Pru replied too sharply.

  She was startled at the interruption of her wayward thoughts. Deliberately she counted to ten and apologized to the young woman.

  "Could you take care of it yourself, Alice?" she said. "As you can hear, I'm as cross as a bear and no fit company for anyone."

  Ever sweet, Alice patted her on the shoulder consolingly.

  "It's all going to be wonderful," she assured Pru. "And everyone in the county is going to show up."

  Pru nodded. Already crowds were beginning to gather, and it was not yet even dark.

  "Yes, I'm sure we will be able to make our case at last," Alice said.

  Pru should be practicing her speech, but she was so distracted. She was thinking of Gidry Chavis again. And she had to stop. She had to forget. She had to ... she had to convince herself that the kiss had never happened.

  To make it all worse than awful, she had seen him on two occasions since obtaining the lanterns. Both times he had tipped his hat at her politely and smiled.

  Pru couldn't imagine what that could mean. Could the man be laughing at her? It was certainly possible. Her behavior that night, however, had been no laughing matter. It was far too easy to love him. And it was a weakness she could not allow herself.

  From the corner of her eye she saw Sharpy. He was helping Reverend Hathaway to move the church's piano onto the stage. Fay Tatum was to play the music, accompanied by Myra Beauchamp on the violin. Hathaway was not the most muscular of gentleman and Sharpy only a child. It began to seem unlikely that they would be capable of pushing the heavy instrument up the steep ramp they'd nailed to the end of the porch platform. Fortunately a couple of burly onlookers decided to lend a hand and momentarily the piano was in place.

  Sharpy thanked them as if their help were a personal favor to him. The little boy had not had so much as a question about what had happened in the gin or how she had managed to return home, escorted by Gidry Chavis and with the Japanese lanterns wrapped neatly in folded newspaper.

  If anything, the little fellow seemed almost guilty. As if it were he who had thoughtlessly involved her. The dear young boy would have never actually done such a thing had she not been so eager to aid him in the larcenous scheme.

  In truth Pru was grateful not to have to explain herself to young Sharpy, or anyone for that matter. She didn't know what had happened in those dark, silent moments inside the gin. Her resistance had broken down. He had been there before her in the flesh, and she had been unable to resist him. She felt drawn to him in a way that was both tentatively tender and prodigiously powerful. It was not like the worship she'd felt for him as a young girl. It was complete, full grown, and all encompassing.

  She had no idea how he must have felt. Pru would never have thought to describe Gidry Chavis as inscrutable, but she certainly didn't understand him. He had held her passionately in his arms. He had pressed her intimately against him. Then he had let her go.

  Gidry had treated her much differently than he had eight years ago. But she had felt no sense of it being in the past. It was as if they were only unfinished. As if their parting were only a temporary lull in a storm that was brewing with great inevitability.

  Pru recognized the direction of her thoughts and checked them firmly once more. There was no way that she was going to begin mooning over Gidry Chavis again. It was one thing to have been a lovesick young girl. It was quite another for a grown woman to make an utter fool of herself in front of a whole town.

  Her only interaction with the man, if any, would be as president of the Ladies' Rose and Garden Society and, so far, it did not appear that he would be much involved with that organization at all.

  Which was better for all concerned, Pru assured herself. She made a last walk-through of the area. It was as lovely as her ladies could make it. There were blooming flowers in every possible location and flowing ribbons twisting in the breeze. Boughs of vivid sumac had been arched over the entryway. And brightly colored vines twined the poles from which the lanterns were strung.

  The women of Chavistown knew how to make things beautiful. And upon this occasion they had not hesitated to do so. Most were at the dance early. Each had her job to do. The refreshments had to be displayed. The last minute details checked and rechecked. The dress rehearsal of the much practiced tableau accomplished.

  Alice was positively frantic because pretty little Callie Fenton had come down with chicken pox and wouldn't be able to do her part in the event. The group had frantically searched for a similar sized child that could wear her costume. They had settled upon Sassy Redfern. Her mother was not in the club, being slightly less than respectable. But her daughter was sweet enough and very eager to participate.

  To Pru's mind it had all worked out perfectly well, but the unexpected snag had completely rattled Alice, who was still not certain that it would all come off as it should.

  It was not yet full dark, but the huge harvest moon was starting to rise. And people began to arrive. Farmers with families came in carts and wagons. Several lone gentleman rode in on horseback. More than one weary farmhand arrived on a mule. Stanley Honnebuzz showed up in his carriage, Judge Ramey at his side. But most people—the people of Chavistown— came walking, dressed in their finest, fittest party dress. They came to laugh and dance and celebrate the beautiful night and the success of the cotton.

  Pru was dressed, modestly, in light and serviceable lawn shirtwaist and skirt. She did not anticipate an opportunity to dance. Younger ladies would have most of the attention. And married women would have the certainty of the first and final dances with their husbands. Spinsters were very clever if they developed an aversion to dancing. Prudence had.

  She had come here tonight to save her garden and her community. And she could only hope that the people of Chavistown, eager to laugh and dance, had also come to listen to reason. That they came prepared to hear an opposing view on the subject of residential street lighting.

  She felt for the pieces of folded paper and the small brown pamphlet that she had stashed in her pocket. Her speech was still there, and she was perfectly ready to make it. She took a cleansing breath as an antidote to nervousness.

  Although public speaking was not as paralyzing for her as for many, the niggle of stage fright was common to all. However, she reminded herself, these were, at least in a very general sense, all friends of hers. There was no one in Chavistown that she had any cause to be nervous around. Except, of course, Gidry Chavis, and he certainly would not be here tonight.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Gidry Chavis sang to himself as he stood in front of his mirror making a knot in his tie.

  He admired his appearance. With the ginning finally complete, he'd been able to make it to the tailor's shop and was sporting a pair of well cut black cassimere trousers, a frothy white pleated shirt, and a blue pin check cotton coat. The look was jaunty, urbane and particularly attractive on a tall man with dark hair. Gidry Chavis wanted to look his best tonight. Even with a most critical eye, he thought that perhaps he did.

  With a spring in his step, Gidry left his own
room and headed for his father's. He was grinning as he walked in, and the old man looked up at him, his eyes questioning.

  "Oh good, you're awake," Gidry said. "You've been sleeping so much lately, I've gotten downright lonely. That's silly enough, isn't it? I've been gone for eight years and home barely a month. And I've already gotten so accustomed to being here with you, that I miss you when you're napping."

  Gidry laughed out loud and seated himself beside his father on the bed.

  "But I can't sit with you tonight, Papa," he told him. "I have a pressing social engagement. I'm off to the Harvest Moon Dance."

  Gidry straightened his collar and adjusted his tie. "Don't I look spiffy in my new duds?"

  He didn't wait for an answer.

  "I'm very particular about how I look," he explained. "It isn't every night that a man asks a woman to marry him."

  The old man's eyes widened at his words.

  "I know, it's probably a bit of a surprise," Gidry said. "Though I don't expect it's as much for you as it will be for most folks in this town. The way I've been talking about her night and day since I arrived back home, I'm pretty sure you suspected my feelings."

  He sighed heavily.

  "I guess a lot of fellows would say it's too early," Gidry admitted. "She and I have hardly talked together at all. And there was just that one kiss. But I'm thinking myself that it's about eight years too late."

  Gidry glanced out the window, his thoughts bittersweet.

  "She loved me then, Papa," he admitted. "She truly loved me and . .. well the truth is I wasn't man enough to be loved. Her devotion terrified me in a way that all my experience with other women never could. I didn't want a woman to love me that way. I didn't believe that I deserved it."

  He shrugged, embarrassed.

  "I was too young," he said. "Although not all men are too young at that age. I was way too young."

  Gidry turned to look with honesty into his father's eyes.

  "And I was your son," he said. "Not at all an easy thing to be."

  His brow furrowing, Gidry took back the words.

  "I don't mean that exactly the way it sounded," he assured his father. "I was lucky to be your son. I was lucky growing up with your love and your example. I want you to understand that I know my good fortune. Not many motherless boys are as cherished and nurtured as I was. I thank you for that. But being the son of Peer Chavis was a more of a fight than I was up for."

  Gidry took a deep breath, trying for once to sort his jumble of feelings into some kind of explainable order.

  "I have always ... always admired you so much, Papa," he said. "You were the biggest, the strongest, the smartest, the most powerful man in Chavis County. In my mind, Chavis County was the whole world. As a boy I thought that you were infallible, invincible. And I knew myself to be all too human."

  He shook his head ruefully.

  "As I grew up and realized, as sons will, that we were both very human, well I suppose that I still suffered a great deal with the comparison. I just didn't think much of myself. I wanted to be like you, but I knew I wasn't up to the job."

  He leaned forward and grasped his father's withered hand in his own.

  "I'm still not the man you are, Papa," he said. "But I'm my own man now. I'm careful and thoughtful. I work hard and try to live right. I can be kind and I can defend what is my own."

  His firm tone belied any doubt.

  "And I want Prudence Belmont to be my own."

  Gidry sighed.

  "I know that you always wanted me to marry Pru," he said. "But I have to tell you honestly, Papa, that is not why I'm doing it."

  He gave his father a wry grin.

  "I'd do most anything you'd ask of me," he said. "However, I have always drawn the line at a lawfully wedded wife."

  He chuckled.

  “Truth is, I think about the woman all the time," he admitted. "Everything that happens, I want to tell her about it. She avoids me as if I had the plague, so I manufacture reasons just to pass her on the street."

  Gidry shook his head.

  "I guess I've finally decided that I deserve to be happy, Papa," he told his father. "I deserve my own wife and my own children. I deserve to be loved. I love her, Papa. And I deserve to get to be her husband."

  A long companionable silence lingered between the two men. Gidry felt the warmth of his father's gaze and knew that the old man was happy for him and proud as well.

  "I'm not saying it's going to be easy," Gidry said. “There is apparently someone else. I don't know the man, but I think I have more to offer her. I don't mean materially, although I think I can keep her in comfort. The fact that I can offer marriage and children and ... and my heart. That's a lot, don't you think. I hope it is enough."

  Gidry rose to his feet.

  "So no wild cowboy stories for you tonight," he said. "I've asked Aunt Hen to sit with you tonight. So I guess we can both spend the evening making eyes at a fine handsome woman."

  Gidry leaned forward, tenderly swept the hair from his father's brow, and kissed him on the forehead.

  "I love you, Papa," he said. "Wish me well."

  His father could not answer, but his fingers tightened around Gidry's and Gidry knew what was in the old man's heart.

  He left the room smiling and singing once more.

  Trotting down the stairs in fine high spirits, he picked his new stitched linen fedora from the rack and placed it upon his head at a rakish angle.

  "Oh dear," he heard Aunt Hen say from the room behind him. "The young ladies had best be on their guard tonight."

  He turned and grinned at the older woman.

  "The young ladies as a whole are relatively safe," he assured her. "I have my eye, however, on one female in particular."

  Aunt Hen raised an eyebrow and giggled delightedly.

  "What a very fortunate young lady," she said.

  Gidry bowed low, feigning fine manners.

  "I do hope she agrees with you, ma'am," he said.

  He left the house laughing, his spirits very high.

  The dancing was well under way by the time he arrived at the church grounds. Just as Pru had predicted, virtually everyone in the county was in attendance. And certainly none of those people expected to see him. He smiled and nodded as he made his way through the crowd, refusing to take offense at often astounded expressions upon the faces of his

  male acquaintances or the most blatant snubs of their wives.

  At the refreshment table, he wondered for a moment if they were going to refuse to serve him. After several skeptical looks and a good deal of whispered discussion behind his back, he was eventually handed a glass of lemonade and two shortbread cookies. It wasn't much considering the abundance of sweets weighing down the table, but at least they were not willing to have him starve.

  He sipped his drink and ate his fare as he watched the dancers cavort upon the floor. Most of the dances were exuberant reels and jigs; occasionally, to the apparent delight of the violinist, waltzes were played. Gidry watched and imagined. He had danced with Pru many times in his youth, but never as a man had he swayed and turned with her in his arms. It was an event to anticipate with great pleasure. He wanted to dance with her until their shoes wore through, until dawn peeped over the horizon, until the end of time.

  He caught sight of Sharpy Kilroy in the crowd and waved welcomingly to the boy. The young fellow stared back at him, unsure. Gidry motioned him over, but to his surprise the child ducked into the crowd and was gone.

  Gidry was puzzled, but shook his head. In memory he saw the boy's frightened eyes when they'd collided upon the stairs in the gin. The fellow must still think Gidry was angry with him. He was not, of course. He knew exactly whose idea it was to steal the Japanese lanterns and where the plan originated.

  His brow furrowed thoughtfully. Of course, Pru would never have known her way through the back alleys like that. And she certainly would not have been able to get into the gin without the child's help.

>   The boy did seem to be pretty conniving for one so young.

  Gidry glanced up again to take notice of the lanterns. They did look very good. He could hardly be sorry she'd come to steal them. And he wasn't even sorry that her little dance was such a success. Stanley Honnebuzz was wrong. If these ladies wanted to have a say in the street lighting project, then at the very least they should get to be heard. No matter how nonsensical or foolish their concerns.

  The dance ended, and Alice Ramey came on stage. She was a kind of quirky looking young woman with far too much brown hair. Actually, she looked a good deal like her father, but it was more attractive on the judge than on his daughter.

  "Ladies and gentlemen of Chavis County," she said formally. "The Chavistown Ladies' Rose and Garden Society presents for the edification and education of the participants of the Harvest Moon Dance, a tableau entitled Three Women of America."

  The pianist began to play a rousing rendition of "My country 'tis of thee" while behind the stage three women assembled dressed in what looked from Gidry's distance to be Grecian robes.

  "The first woman of America," Alice announced over the sound of the piano. "Lady Liberty, who stands ever watchful shining her light into the darkest corners of land to guard us against oppression, despotism, and tyranny."

  Elmer Corsen's wife stepped onto the stage, her draped gown not quite able to disguise her rather large girth. She carried in her hand a makeshift torch of colored paper with yellow and orange ribbons strung up a wire frame to resemble a flame.

  The pianist finished that verse and Alice began speaking again.

  "The second woman of America is Blind Justice," she declared, as the next lady made her entrance on the stage. "Forever vigilant that truth and equality prevail, she weighs only the facts with no regard for wealth and privilege."

  Blind Justice did indeed have a folded scarf across her eyes. Her steps were, therefore, a little tentative. She reached her side of the stage and then with whispered directions from Alice moved over a little farther. The scales she held before her clattered a bit with the effort.