Deborah Camp (26 page)

“Now here is a woman who can bake cobblers,” Mrs. Keizer said. “Put her down for three cobblers and four loaves of bread. I’ll bake six dozen oatmeal cookies.”

Mrs. Casper jotted down the pledges. “Oh, that’s wonderful! Thank you Mrs. Carpenter. Your cobblers are legendary!”

Somehow Sally Carpenter moved to stand directly
in front of Elise. Another woman edged toward the table, pressing Elise off to the side.

“And here’s Lily Binder,” Mrs. Keizer said, snagging the woman’s sleeve and tugging her forward, also ahead of Elise. “She can bake apple pie that melts in your mouth! And her chocolate cake! Oh, my. Put her down for both.”

The chattering women moved around Elise like a river around a fallen log. When a large woman with a horsey face nearly knocked Elise off her feet, Elise gave up and stumbled outside. Tears swam in her eyes and she swiped angrily at them. She looked back into the church, glaring at the women who had snubbed her.

Suddenly Dixie Shoemaker’s sweet face came into view. Dixie maneuvered through the crowd to lay a hand on the sleeve of Elise’s leaf green dress.

“You go ahead and bring cobblers and cookies and whatever else you want. It’s for the Lord, not for those heartless old hens.”

Elise smiled and hugged Dixie close for a moment. “I’m glad I have you and Airy. I’m sorry about your still,” she added in a whisper, not sure such business should be discussed near the church.

Dixie adjusted her yellow bonnet, which matched her dress. “I don’t know what gets into people’s heads to make them think they’ve got a right to run everybody’s life. It doesn’t matter, though. We’re building a new one that will turn out a brew so fine, we’ll be able to charge double for it.” She giggled girlishly. “Just you wait and see.”

“Do they know about your … business?” Elise asked, nodding toward the women inside.

“Everybody knows, honey. Their husbands buy our brew all the time, and the wives act like they
don’t have a clue, but they know.” Dixie winked. “Just like they know about their husbands visiting the Rusty Key’s painted ladies.”

“Why did they accept Julia, but not me?”

“Their children loved Julia, and Julia made their children love school. It’s difficult to keep children in school around here. The fathers want them to help in the fields, not learn numbers and letters. The children, lots of times, would rather work than learn, but Julia made learning fun for them. Mothers generally understand that learning can mean their children won’t have to pick cotton all their lives.” Dixie started down the church steps, and Elise walked with her.

Through the gathering dusk Elise spied Blade climbing into the wagon and helping Penny to sit beside him. She stood beside the road with Dixie and waited for them.

“And you won’t let those old hens keep you from bringing your wares to the sale?”

Blade stopped the wagon beside Elise. She looked back at the lamp-lit church. Mrs. Keizer and Mrs. Carpenter stood at the top of the steps, their gazes on her and their heads together in heated gossip.

“We’re good cooks. We ought to get together and bake up something special—something no one can resist,” she mused aloud to Dixie.

“That’s the spirit!” Dixie said with a giggle.

“Speaking of spirits …” Blade winked as he reached out a hand to help Elise up into the wagon. “That whiskey cake you and Airy bake every Christmas for me ought to sell real well.”

“Blade, you’re a right smart feller,” Dixie proclaimed, with a happy laugh. “That’s what we’ll
make. Whiskey cake. Why, they’ll be swarming over them like flies!”

Blade aimed a finger at her. “Now you’re talking. I’ll be around to Airy’s after supper with the lumber.”

“Much obliged, Blade. I’ll be there, too.” Dixie fished a hard candy from her dress pocket and gave it to Penny. “There you go, sweetie pie.”

“What do you say, Pen?” Elise prompted.

“Thank you, Mrs. Shoemaker,” Penny responded.

“Why, you’re mighty welcome.” Dixie looked from Elise to Blade and a slyness tinged her smile. “You’ve got a good woman there beside you, Blade Lonewolf. Hope you know that.” Then she turned and walked briskly away.

Blade clucked and the mules started off. “You know, Julia lived here since she was a girl.”

Elise looked at him inquiringly. “Did she?”

He nodded. “I was thinking about horses.”

Elise shook her head, baffled. “Horses? I thought you were thinking about Julia.”

“No. Horses.” He waved at a passing wagon, then guided the mules with a steady hand on the reins. “You introduce a pretty, young mare into a herd and the other mares hate her on sight. They nip at her and chase her around. If she catches the eye of a stallion, the mares will gang up on her and try to keep her away from him. They’ll try their best to run her out of their territory.”

Elise listened, wondering what he was trying to tell her.

“After a spell, though, that mare stops being a stranger. The sun sets enough times until the herd gets used to her. One day that mare is allowed to drink at the stream with the others. She grazes with
the others and nobody tries to chase her off.”

“That’s very interesting, Blade, but I—”

“I heard those wicked-tongued women back there,” he said, turning to face her.

“Y-you heard? But you were outside with Pen—”

“No. Penny saw some school friends and wanted to talk to them. I went back in and watched that old mare Mrs. Keizer chase you out of the pasture.”

Elise refused to let him see how the women had hurt her. She adopted a breezy tone. “We’ll have the last laugh. Those whiskey cakes will sell, no matter what Mrs. Keizer and those other women think of me.”

“It’s not you. It’s me, Elise. They look down their noses at anyone of dark skin. I started to tell those women what I thought of them, but we were in a holy place.”

Elise rested a hand on his shirtsleeve. “I’m glad you didn’t make a scene. They aren’t worth it.”

“Someday they will include you. They will welcome you. If they hadn’t known Julia before she married me, they would have shunned her, too.”

“I’m not interested in friendships with them. I have good friends. Airy and Dixie, your cousins, Penny’s teacher. I’ll make more. Mrs. Keizer isn’t someone I would want to have tea with anyway.”

“I wish you could be proud to be my wife, but—”

“I
am
proud,” she interrupted him, squeezing his arm. “Nothing those women say can ever change that, Blade Lonewolf.”

He squared his shoulders and cast her a look that was almost bashful. “Dixie is right,” he whispered,
his voice suddenly hoarse. “I have a good woman sitting beside me.”

Elise rested her cheek against his shoulder and closed her eyes, eyes that had filled with sentimental tears.

S
etting aside the butter churn, Elise placed a hand against the small of her back and twisted her upper body to relieve her knotted muscles. Since returning from church, she’d churned for nearly an hour while Penny and Blade had checked on the animals. Now Penny and Blade sat on the porch, and Elise could hear Penny’s chattering and Blade’s occasional word.

Since the filly had been born, Penny had grown more attached to Blade. The blessed event had made him even more special in her eyes, especially since he allowed her to spend all the time she wanted with Gwenie, and he called the filly “Penny’s pony.”

While getting ready for that evening’s church services, Penny had confided to Elise, her eyes all aglow, that Blade had promised she would be the first to ride Gwenie.

“ ’Lise, he says that since I named her, I can have her,” Penny had said, excitement making her tremble. “She’s mine! And Blade says he’ll help me train and saddle-break her when it’s time. He’ll teach me to ride and everything!”

Elise smiled at the memory as she moved silently
to the door and peeked out. Blade sat on the top step, Penny on the bottom one. Starlight illuminated their faces. Penny, her legs drawn up and her arms circling them, related her most recent scrape with Domino, the barnyard’s fussiest hen. Blade, a charming smile on his lips, listened and chuckled occasionally. He sat with his knees spread apart and his elbows propped on them, an empty coffee cup in his big hands.

Elise’s nerves fluttered along with her heart. Ever since last night, she’d been hard pressed to keep her emotions at bay. Just looking at him made her pulses drum incessantly. Images of their private times together flitted through her mind, tempting her, making her want him madly.

He looked so good to her that it was sinful. His arms, bared by his turned-up sleeves, were deeply tanned and rippled with muscle. She remembered how safe she felt in his embrace, how small, how delicate, how totally feminine. The markings on his arms were beautiful to her eyes now because they reminded her that he was of two worlds, two cultures. Both had shaped him, but neither had completely claimed him. He was a loner, a maverick. He had carved out his own place and then he had made room for her and Penny in it. For that alone she could love him, but she loved him for far more. She loved him because he needed her, although he probably wouldn’t admit it, and because he made her feel wanted, cherished, desired.

“… and if I even come near her chicks, she runs at me, squawking and flapping her wings,” Penny complained to Blade, breaking into Elise’s reverie. “The other hens aren’t mean like Domino. Why, she even tries to peck at old Red! He crows at her and gives her chase when he gets enough of her
pecking and clucking. I don’t know why Domino’s so contwa … contrrary.”

“You say your words good now.”

“You think so?” Penny grinned up at him. “I try hard.”

“Domino is a good mother,” Blade said. “She doesn’t trust anyone or anything around her chicks.”

“Not even Red? He’s her husband, isn’t he?”

Blade gave a chuckle. “In a way, yes.” He ruffled Penny’s hair.

Elise pressed a hand to her heart, which seemed to swell with each sign of affection he showed. Did he love Penny?

Does he love me?

“Roosters, generally, aren’t good fathers.” He gazed out at the land. “Among animals, that is often the case. Once the offspring are born, the mother pretty much does all the caretaking. Sometimes the fathers hunt and bring home food, and sometimes they do nothing at all.”

“My papa was a good father,” Penny said. “And you’re a good father, too. Maybe I’ll call you Papa Blade.”

Penny’s suggestion arrested Elise’s heartbeats for a few moments as her gaze flew to Blade. He looked startled, but then his eyes crinkled at the corners and he smoothed a hand over Penny’s coppery hair.

“If you ever want to call me that, it would be fine with me. Such a name would honor me.”

The pleased expression on Penny’s face sent Elise back into the house. She moved blindly toward the stove, one hand at her throat, the other over her eyes as she dealt with the aftershocks of the exchange she had witnessed.

She hadn’t expected to be nearly knocked off her
feet by Penny’s devotion to Blade. Nor had she anticipated the rush of panic that had surged through her. True, she had been aware of Penny’s growing affection for Blade since the night Gwenie had been born, but …
Papa Blade?

Where did this place her real papa? That was what picked at Elise, this traitorous feeling. Should she encourage her little sister to think of Blade Lonewolf as her new father, or should she discourage it in deference to their deceased father?

Penny was only eight and she needed a flesh-and-blood father, Elise told herself. Keeping their father’s memory alive was important, but not to the exclusion of any other man’s paternal love.

Elise had needs as well. She needed a husband, in every sense of the word. Not just physically, but emotionally. She needed to know where she stood with Blade.

Uncovering her eyes, Elise looked toward the spare bedroom. She could call Blade her husband, but she wouldn’t feel it until she was sure he loved her. Until he could sleep with her in that room, she wouldn’t—
couldn’t
—trust her feelings for him. She could think of no greater pain than to give all of herself to Blade, only to discover that he had given merely a portion of himself to her.

“Elise?”

The caress of his voice feathered a delightful shiver down her back. She turned, and Penny wrapped her arms around Elise’s waist.

“She’s yawning,” Blade said. “But she says it’s not time for bed.”

“Well, she’s wrong.” Elise smacked Penny’s rump playfully. “Get in there and undress, young lady, and be sure to wash off the dirt and grime
before you put on a fresh nightgown and small-clothes.”

“Okay. ’Night, Blade.” Penny skipped to the bedroom she and Penny shared.
Used
to share, Elise corrected herself.

“Good night, Pen.”

Blade’s use of Penny’s shortened name didn’t go unnoticed. Elise looked across the room to where he filled the doorway. Starlight bathed his shoulders and limned his slim hips. She saw the flash of his white teeth.

“Smallclothes?”

Elise laughed lightly. “My mother called them that. It’s an old-fashioned word.”

“You have most interesting smallclothes.” He treaded closer on silent feet.

“And you have few, I noticed. Sometimes none.”

“Oh, you’ve noticed that, have you?”

“Yes.” She turned, deftly sidestepping him, wanting to make him wait a little longer. “And what is so interesting about my unmentionables?”

His laughter sounded more like a rumbling purr. “Yet another odd word. What is interesting? Ribbons and laces. Whalebone and embroidery. Very fancy, but I don’t think you need most of them. Your figure is perfect without those contraptions.”

“Spoken like a gentleman who is trying to turn a lady’s head.” Pleasure purled through her.

“We
are
sleeping together tonight, aren’t we?”

Her breath caught in her throat. Flames seemed to leap from her stomach into her chest. “Y-yes, if you want.”

A feral grin captured his mouth. “Oh, I want.”

“B-but I have to get Penny settled in first.” Flustered by his straightforwardness, she started to go toward Penny’s room, but Blade caught her around
the waist. His lips caressed the side of her neck. His hands skimmed over her hips and splayed along her thighs.