Amanda's Beau (14 page)
Authors: Shirley Raye Redmond
"Thank you," Amanda said.
Gil nodded. She was so beautiful, standing there with the baby in her arms. Such an admirable woman, one who could care tenderly for her sister's child as if she were her own. For many years, he'd contemplated the joys of one day being a husband and a father. In all that time, he had had only the most vague notion of what his future bride might look like. Recently, however, he had begun to picture Amanda Dale in that role. Now whenever his thoughts strayed to the subject of matrimony, it was her face, and hers alone, that came to mind. He wanted to praise her generous nature and to tell her she was lovely, but he was no Nate Phillips. He couldn't shower a woman with compliments as easily as his glib friend did.
Instead, he held out his arms toward the baby, asking, "May I hold her?"
Amanda regarded him with a shy tenderness in her eyes, which caused a sudden pounding against his ribs. She carefully deposited the baby into his outstretched arms and said, "Minnie's filling out nicely, don't you think?"
Gil studied the baby with careful consideration, from her thatch of dark hair to her tiny feet encased in white booties. Minnie's flannel gown was white too, trimmed with pale green ribbon the color of fresh celery. Her two small fists were clasped tightly beneath her tiny chin â a chin that appeared to have grown chubbier than the last time he'd seen her.
"Why, she's quite a little fatling!" he observed with a smile.
Amanda sighed with relieved pleasure. She hurried away to retrieve something from a small table in the corner of the room. It was his copy of Ben-Hur. "Mr. Gladney, I finished the book you loaned me. Thank you for doing so. I found it to be inspiring." Her expression was so earnest he did not doubt her.
"I thought so too," he admitted.
"It made me want to be a better person. Do you know what I mean?"
"Yes, I do," Gil replied. "But I must tell you, Amanda, I consider you to be a fine Christian woman, for all you've done for your sister and her children, and Iâ¦"
Rex burst in at that moment and grasped Gil's shirtsleeve. With a slight tug, he said, "Come show Minnie to Mr. Phillips. He's been wondering where you went off to."
With a wry smile, Gil exchanged the baby for the book and followed Amanda and Rex into the kitchen, where the proud big brother explained to Nate how Minnie had been born two months early, her little face had been no bigger than a silver dollar, and how Aunt Mandy kept her in a roasting pan on the open oven door to stay warm.
Nate feigned a keen interest, but when the hungry baby began to fuss, he rose, suggesting he and Gil should hit the road. "Miss Dale, you must come visit the excavation site after we begin clearing away the debris. I'll soon have the site surveyed and organized."
Gil detected a hint of annoyance in Amanda's tone when she replied, "I doubt I'll have the time, Mr. Phillips. Besides, as you're now renting storage space here, I'll be able to walk down to the old shed and see the relics you uncover at my leisure."
"Ah, but not the pictographs," Nate insisted. "You'll have to come to see those at the site."
"What are pictographs?" Rex wanted to know.
Gil answered for him. "Those are pictures that have been cut into the walls. First, the ancient Indians would cover the walls of their chambers with white plaster and then colored plaster on top of that. Then they would carve pictures into the walls."
"Are there pictographs at the old site?" Amanda asked. Gil could tell she was intrigued. So was he for that matter. He hadn't noticed any pictographs.
"I'm sure there will be," Nate boasted. "I'll personally give you a tour when they are discovered."
They made their farewells and stepped outside into the lengthening shadows of the late afternoon. It would be dark in an hour or two, Gil noted, as he climbed into Nate's runabout and buttoned his coat.
After adjusting his driving goggles and scarf, Nate glanced toward the house. "Quite a pretty woman," he noted. He gave Gil a considering stare. "Do you have any intentions in that direction, old pal?"
"No," Gil replied with a surly shrug. It wasn't exactly a lie. What he wished to do and intended to do were not exactly the same. At least, not for the time being.
****
Amanda drew a breath of relief when the two men had gone. She was tired. Her crying jag in the yard near the clothesline earlier in the day had left her emotionally drained and feeling like a limp dishcloth. What must Gil Gladney have thought of her, clad in an old calico with a soiled apron, her mussed hair twisted into a girlish braid?
And Nate Phillips. He wasn't anything at all like she imagined he would be. She'd pictured a pale, shy scholar with spectacles and pinched features. The description didn't fit Mr. Phillips at all. She reluctantly admitted to herself he was a fine looking man â even more handsome than Gil, if such a thing were possible. He was taller than Gil, with white, straight teeth. His smile was one of the first things she'd noticed about him. His thick hair was dark gold in color, and his brown eyes alight with laughter, as though he were enjoying some private joke.
He'd perplexed her, to be honest, because he seemed so eager to please. She wondered why. With her nerves frayed, she'd found his flattering attention exhausting. The man hadn't said anything in so many words, but by his manner and the way he'd fixed his eyes upon her face and figure, Amanda knew he found her attractive.
"Reckon we'll be filling up Mama's money jar again, soon enough," Rex said as he breezed through the door. He'd run out to see the men take off in Mr. Phillips' jaunty, red-and-black automobile â something Amanda considered a silly indulgence.
"The extra money will be a blessing," she replied. "Mr. Phillips made a generous offer. Here, sit down and hold Minnie while I heat up some milk."
Rex obediently sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and took the baby, supporting her little neck and head, the way Amanda had shown him.
"Tomorrow I want you to sweep out the old chicken house and open the windows," Amanda told him. "We ought to air it out some before Mr. Phillips starts moving things in there." She prepared a bottle and gave the pea soup at the back of the stove a quick stir. She was too tired to make supper tonight. They could finish up the soup and make do with day-old biscuits.
"I can do it in the morning before I go to school, Aunt Mandy," he replied. Rex smoothed Minnie's dark sprouts of hair with one hand. "I'm sure glad Mr. Phillips offered me a job washing his old potsherds. He must have changed his mind about me."
"What do you mean?" Amanda asked, filling the baby's bottle.
"Jerry and I followed him and Mr. Gladney out to the ruins when school was dismissed," Rex explained. "I asked him for a job â to help with digging after school and on Saturdays, but he said âno, it was too dangerous.'"
Amanda had to give the man credit for more good sense than she'd originally thought he'd had. His financial offer for renting the old shed and for Rex's services had been generous enough to rouse her suspicions. Did other archeology scholars hire people to wash old pottery bits? Nate Phillips was going to make a lot of people glad of his coming if he treated everyone else as generously as he'd treated her today.
"He must be awfully rich, don't you think?" Rex asked, as though reading her thoughts.
"Yes, he must be," she agreed. The old maxim, a fool and his money are soon parted, popped into her head. Was Nate Phillips a fool? Somehow Amanda doubted it.
"Lucky for us, he's rich and generous too," Rex added with a bark of a laugh.
Amanda chuckled. Lucky indeed! She'd already decided as soon as Mr. Phillips paid her the money he'd promised for the rental of the chicken house, she'd make another trip to the bank to pay down Ella's debt.
"You'd better gather the eggs, Rex, and get on with your chores. Hand me the baby."
"You know, if I hurry, I might have time to sweep out the old chicken house before supper," Rex said springing from his chair once Amanda cradled Minnie in her arms.
"Fill the wood box first," she told him. "It'll be dark soon. Don't dawdle."
"I won't, Aunt Mandy," he promised, rushing out the door.
As Amanda carried Minnie into the sitting room to feed the baby in the rocker, she recalled the sight of Gil holding the infant shortly before in this same room. She felt a strange surge of happiness at the recent memory. There was something endearing about watching a man hold a child, particularly a baby. What had Gil been about to say before Rex had interrupted? she wondered.
After feeding Minnie and tucking the infant back into her cradle, Amanda carried a basin of hot water into Ella's room. She was surprised to find her sister awake and more alert than she had been previously. "Ella, how about a warm sponge bath? I want to change your nightgown too. If I help you, do you think you could sit up on the side of the bed?"
Ella replied with a weak nod. Amanda pulled back the covers and helped her sit up. She pulled the nightgown up over her head and quickly sponged her sister's back, arms and shoulders before slipping on a freshly laundered one.
"The baby? She's all right?" Ella voice was faint, but Amanda rejoiced nonetheless. Her sister was taking an interest in her new baby daughter, and that was a good thing â a wonderful thing.
"She's fine, Ella. Growing like a weed. I'll bring her in as soon I get you dressed."
As Amanda fastened the final button on her sister's nightgown, Ella began to quiver. At first, Amanda thought she was cold. She glanced around the room for a shawl to throw around Ella's shoulders. But Ella brought her pale hands to her face and began to cry noisily. Soon her frail body shook with violent sobs.
Watching her, Amanda felt like crying too. But she'd already cried all her tears earlier that morning. Sitting next to her sister on the bed, Amanda placed a comforting arm around her quaking shoulders. "Go ahead and have a good cry, Ella. Get it all out. It's been bottled up inside now for long enough."
Amanda sat quietly while Ella wept. Occasionally, she'd pat her sister on the back or give one shoulder a comforting squeeze.
"Randall â Poor Randall," Ella sputtered when her crying was done. "I'll miss him so."
"Of course you will," Amanda replied in a soothing voice. She jumped up to fetch a warm washcloth for her sister to wipe her face with. "Here," she said, handing it to her. "Don't you feel better?"
Ella wiped her face. She gave Amanda a sad, misty smile. "Poor Mandy. You look dead on your feet. You've been soldiering on, haven't you?"
Amanda straightened her shoulders. "Don't worry about me, Ella. Just get better. Rex is counting on you, and Minnie too. Sit there. Don't move. I'm going to bring the baby to you."
Her heart soaring, Amanda flew from the room to fetch Minnie. The baby was sound asleep, but Amanda risked waking her for this important visit with her mother. She was uncertain if Ella was strong enough to hold the child, so she placed the infant on the bed. Ella gazed uncertainly, first at Amanda and then down at her tiny daughter. With a hesitant motion, she reached for the baby's foot and gave it a gentle wiggle. Minnie yawned and gurgled. A faint smile tugged at the corner of Ella's white lips. Amanda placed a trembling hand over her pounding heart and felt the sting of joyful tears in her eyes.
Everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right. Everything is going to be all right. Amanda repeated the phrase in her mind over and over again as if frequent repetition would make it so.
"Mandy, could I have some tea â hot tea?" Ella asked. Her tone sounded almost apologetic, as though she were reluctant to put her sister to any more trouble on her behalf.
"Yes, of course, anything," Amanda replied eagerly. "You sit right there. Keep your eye on Minnie, and I'll be back in two shakes of a lamb's tail."
Hurrying to the kitchen, she put on the kettle to boil and closed her eyes to whisper a prayer of thanksgiving. Everything is going to be all right, she assured herself. But when Rex stumbled through the door a minute later, with three baskets filled with eggs and Bonita wriggling behind him, Amanda had a pang of doubt. Was the dog a deadly predator? If only she knew for sure.
Excited by his mother's first real sign of recovery, Rex asked to eat his supper in Ella's room that evening. Amanda let him. She tucked Ella back into bed, brought her a cup of strong mint tea with plenty of sugar, and slipped Minnie back into her cradle near the bed, where Ella could look down on her whenever she wanted to. The evening had a festive feeling, like Christmas Day. Rex even hugged Amanda when she told him Bonita could sleep next to his cot in the sitting room. Although she returned the embrace, she didn't mention the hens were probably safer with the dog inside anyway.
Amanda heaved a grateful sigh when she was finally able to collapse into bed and retreat under the covers. It had been a long, tiring day. Despite Ella's promising signs of recovery, Amanda felt emotionally drained. She'd been hopeful for so long that Ella would return to normal. Now she was afraid it might be too good to be true. Asking God to forgive her for her disbelief, she closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Instead, she tossed and turned, unable to get Nate's handsome face out of her mind.
"Curse the man," she muttered.
He was nothing to her. Yet, she was haunted by the challenge she'd read in his deep, brown-eyed gaze. It had been both disturbing and exhilarating. Although she was not attracted to him in a romantic way, there was a manliness in his face that had aroused both her respect and admiration. Something else about him had stirred up her suspicious nature. She wasn't exactly sure what. Perhaps it was the generosity of his offer to rent the old chicken house. Or maybe it was the exorbitant fee he was willing to pay Rex for washing potsherds, or whatever he called them. The boy would have settled for a dime a day â a fair price. Amanda would have been happy to let him use the old shed for a fraction of the cost he had agreed to pay. It wasn't like the neighbors were lining up to rent it for themselves.