Hummingbird (13 page)

"How observant you are, Miss Abigail," he said quietly. And damn if she didn't blush. "Here, you can take over." He handed her the brush. "I'm not too coordinated with my left hand."

"Are you sure you trust me?" Her one fine eyebrow was hoisted higher than the other, but still he smiled.

"No, should I?"

"Mr. Melcher did," she lied, not knowing why she should want this man to think she had shaved David Melcher.

"He didn't look like he had enough man in him to grow a beard. Are you sure there was hair on his face when you started?"

"Hold still or I may cut your nose off yet." She poised the blade above his cheek. "And, unlike your moustache, it shan't grow back."

"Just stay away from my upper lip," he warned, then pulled his mouth muscles to tighten them and could feel the blade as she scraped around none too proficiently. He reached up to stop her so he could talk without getting cut.

"Shape it down around here—"

"I remember the shape well enough, sir," she interrupted, "and you have me by the wrist again." An interminable moment charged past while his brown fingers circled her little wrist.

"So I do," he grinned. "I shall take the razor from you and slit it if you take off one more hair than I think you should." He released her and shut his eyes while she finished. She was getting better at it as she went along. So, he thought, she remembers the shape well enough, does she? For some reason that vastly pleased him.

"Miss Abigail?" She turned from rinsing the razor to find his black eyes filled with wicked amusement as they smiled from his freshly shaved face. "I shall spend time thinking of a way to get even with you for the loss of my moustache."

"I'm sure you shall, sir Meanwhile, we'll drink lemonade together as if we were the best of friends, shan't we?"

When she brought the lemonade, he had a difficult time drinking from the glass.

"Here, try this," she said, handing him something that looked like a willow twig.

"What's this?"

"A piece of cattail which I reamed out with a knitting needle. You may drink your lemonade through it."

He tried it and it worked.

"How ingenious of you. Why didn't you bring it for the broth this morning? Were you so anxious to spoon-feed me?"

"I simply did not think of it."

"Ah," he said knowingly, his expression saying only a fool would believe that.

"I have things to do," she said abruptly, deciding not to stay and drink her lemonade after all, not if he was going to tease again.

"Aren't you having any lemonade? Bring it in here and let's talk a minute."

"I grow weary of your talk. I almost wish your voice hadn't come back."

"How cruel of you to deny me the use of my voice when it's one of the few parts of me that's working right." Before she could decide if he meant the remark to be suggestive, he encouraged, "Don't go. I just want to talk awhile."

She hesitated, then perched on the sewing rocker, wondering why she stayed in the room with him. She sipped daintily while he pulled thirstily at the fresh drink through the piece of cattail, then growled,

"Ahhhh, that's almost as good as beer."

"I wouldn't know." No, he supposed she wouldn't.

"Doc Dougherty was here while you were gone."

"And how did he find your condition?"

"Much better than expected." She lifted her glass but not her eyes. "He told me I ought to thank you for saving my life."

"And are you?" she challenged.

"I'm not sure yet," he answered. "Just what all did you have to do to save it? I'm curious."

"Not much. A poultice here and a compress there."

"Why so modest, Miss Abigail? I know it took more than a pat on the head to bring me around. I have a natural curiosity about what you did to keep my carcass from rotting."

Unconsciously, Miss Abigail studied her two bitten fingers, rubbing her thumb over the small scabs which had formed, unaware that his eyes followed hers.

"There was very little for me to do. You were strong and healthy and the bullet couldn't do you in, that's all."

"Doc and I are both wondering as to how you fed me. I heard you say I ate—more than once today you referred to it. How can an unconscious man eat?"

"Very well, I'll tell you. I force-fed you, using that piece of cattail you're drinking through. I had to insert it into your throat. That's why it hurt so severely when you first awakened." Again he noted her preoccupation with the marks between her knuckles and began putting two and two together.

"Are you saying you spooned medicine and food through this little hole?" She was growing very uncomfortable under this line of questioning, then suddenly realized his eyes were on the knuckles she'd been nursing and hid them in her skirt.

"I did not spoon it. I blew it," she admitted impatiently.

"With your mouth, Miss Abigail?" he asked in surprise.

"With my mouth, Mr. Cameron." But she would not meet his eyes.

"Well I'll be damned."

"Yes, you probably already are, but please refrain from saying so in my presence."

"Is that how you got tickled by my moustache? By this little bitty short straw here? It sure seems to me like it could have been cut a little longer."

Feeling her face heat up, she shot out of the rocker but he was too quick. He grabbed and got her by the back of her hand. He looked at her exposed fingers, then up at her face, with a mischievous smile creasing one side of his mouth.

"And these…"he said, studying the fingers, "what are these?"

"Turn my hand loose, sir!"

"As soon as I'm satisfied about what took place here while I was not coherent. Could these be my tooth marks?"

"Yes!"

He held the hand in a viselike grip while she struggled to pull it free. "What were your fingers doing in my mouth?"

"Holding it open and forcing your tongue down while I inserted the straw into your throat."

"And you call that
nothing much
?"

She glared at him silently, red to the ears now.

"To feed a common thief, mouth to mouth, to put your fingers into his mouth and suffer him to bite them until he broke the skin, and to take broth into your own mouth and blow it into his? That is much more than
nothing much
. That is dedication, Miss Abigail. That is stalwart, admirable dedication, isn't it? It seems I do owe you my gratitude."

"You owe me nothing… Let my—"

"I owe you my gratitude. How shall I express it?"

"Just let my hand go and that will be quite enough."

"Ah no, Miss Abigail. Surely that won't do. After all, you've been forced into some unorthodox—not to mention intimate—methods of caring for me. I would be ungrateful to let your generosity pass without notice." With his thumb he gently stroked the tooth marks on her fingers. Their sparring eyes met while a queer thrill grabbed her stomach and she strained to pull free of his grasp. "Since I have no more ticklish moustache to offend you with, allow me… by way of apology for this…" Then in slow motion he pulled her fingers to his lips and kissed the small scars. He felt the change when she stopped fighting and let him take the fingers to his mouth. Then he turned the hand over, kissed the palm with a light, lingering touch, and lightly ran his tongue out to wet her skin. She jerked then and grabbed the stricken hand with her other.

"I must have been out of my mind to bring you into my house!" she spit.

"I only meant to apologize for biting you. Don't worry, it won't happen again."

"And is this… this form of apology your way of getting even for my having shaved your moustache?"

"Oh, that. No, never, Miss Abigail. When I choose the time and the method of getting even, you'll well know it."

His implication was plain, and all Miss Abigail could do was scuttle out, escaping those casually smiling lips and eyes which were so much more of a threat in his newfound good humor than they'd ever been in his anger.

She kept as far away from that bedroom door as she possibly could for the remainder of the day, telling herself that each time she remembered his kiss and her stomach trembled, it was from anger.

At noon she was forced to go to him with his dinner. She made the thickest stew she could manage and unceremoniously plopped the bowl on his chest.

He'd been dozing and awoke with a start. All he had time to say was, "Boy, the service is really going downhill around this place." But she was gone again. She didn't care how he managed or failed to manage eating that stew. Furthermore, she hoped it was thick enough to tear his gut out!

"Got any more of that stew out there?" he hollered a few minutes later.

She should have guessed that a goat like him would eat everything in the house and never be bothered by it at all! She slapped more stew into his bowl and again plopped it wordlessly onto his chest while he lay there grinning as if he knew something she didn't.

In the afternoon she went up to clean Mr. Melcher's room, only to find the book of sonnets lying like a love letter from a lost beau. In a lifetime of much loneliness, she remembered how for those few treasured days he had been a harbinger of something better to come. But he was gone from her life as suddenly as he'd entered it.

A timid knock on the downstairs door brought Miss Abigail from her brown study. Coming down the steps she recognized the fabric of David Melcher's suit sleeve, which was all she could see of him. It brought a flutter to her heart as, crossing the parlor, she paused, put a hand to her breathless lips, then smoothed her blouse front, her waistband, then touched a hand to the coil of hair at the nape of her neck.

She didn't realize that from the bedroom Jesse saw it all.

She moved beyond his range of vision, but every word was audible, and even from the bedroom he could detect her breathlessness.

"Why, Mr. Melcher, it's you."

"Yes… ahem… I came to return your father's slippers."

"Yes… yes, of course. Thank you." The screen door spring went twinnng, and a long silence followed.

"I'm afraid I've been a lot of trouble to you."

"No, no, you've been no trouble at all."

Melcher seemed to be having some trouble with his throat. He cleared it several times, followed by a second lengthy silence. When they spoke again, it was simultaneously.

"Miss Abigail, I may have jumped to…"

"Mr. Melcher, this morning was…"

Silence again while the man in the bedroom cocked his ear.

"You were within your rights to get angry with me this morning."

"No, Mr Melcher. I don't know what came over me."

"You had good cause, though. I never should have said those things."

"Well, it really doesn't matter, does it, since you're leaving Stuart's Junction on the train within an hour?"

"I want you to know what it meant to me, this time I've spent in your lovely house while you cared for me. You did far more than was expected of you."

"Nonsense, Mr. Melcher…" Conscious now of the man in the bedroom, she realized he could hear every word, but there was nowhere else she could take David Melcher. The front porch was too public, the kitchen too private.

"No, it's not, Miss Abigail. Why, your… your nasturtiums and the sonnets and your tasteful way of doing things… I mean, I'm not used to such treatment. And all that delicious food and your fine care—"

"All in the line of duty."

"Was it?" he asked. "I'd hoped…" But this he didn't finish, and Miss Abigail toyed with the lace edging of her high, stiff collar.

"Hopes can be very hurtful things, Mr. Melcher," she said quietly.

"Yes… well…"

"I see you have purchased yourself a pair of new shoes."

"Yes. Not quite as fine as those I sell, but…" Once again his words trailed away.

"Feel welcome to keep Father's cane. I have no use for it since he's gone."

"Are you sure?"

She suddenly wanted very badly for him to take it, for him to carry away some small thing from her house which would always remind him of her.

"I shan't miss it, but you might, if you had to go without it."

"Yes… well… thank you again, Miss Abigail."

It grew silent again and Jesse pictured the two of them, both probably gaping at the old man's cane. The spring on the screen door sang again.

"If I ever get back through here, I'll return the cane to you."

"You needn't bother."

"Ah… I see," he said, rather forlornly.

"I didn't mean…" But her words, too, trailed away.

"I will always think of this place when I smell the scent of nasturtiums."

She swallowed, her heart threatening to explode, her eyes to flood.

"Goodbye, Miss Abigail," he said, backing away slowly.

"Goodbye, Mr Melcher."

It grew so quiet then that Jesse could hear each and every one of Melcher's irregular steps shuffling off down the road. He saw the limping figure through the east facet of the bay window, below the half-drawn shade, and thought, damn fool should've used his head on that train and he wouldn't be limping now. It was the first time Jesse was able to think of Melcher without getting frustrated and angry at his own incapacity. He heard the footsteps of Miss Abigail go back upstairs long, long after Melcher limped away. She must have watched him out of sight, Jesse thought. He couldn't help recalling all that Doc had told him about the other man who'd walked out on her once before, couldn't help comparing now to then. And he could not stop the irritating twitch of conscience that prickled him.

From an upstairs window Miss Abigail watched the puffs of smoke as the afternoon train pulled in. Its whistle swooned through the stillness as she held the lace curtains aside. She pictured Mr. Melcher limping aboard the train. Her heart called to him not to forget hen A puffy cloud lifted above the roof of the depot and the steam whistle cried mournfully once more, bearing David Melcher out of her life. Her eyes stung as she turned to put fresh sheets on his bed.

She fully expected to be teased again after everything the man in her house had overheard. She came to his doorway to find him sound asleep. It gave her a moment of perverse pleasure to disturb him.