Hummingbird (23 page)

She immediately gazed out the screen door, faraway things in her expression as she answered, "None."

"I gathered as much from Doc. I left my family when I was twenty. He said you stayed with yours."

"Yes." She picked away a nonexistent thread from her skirt.

"Not by choice?"

She looked up sharply. It would not do to admit such a thing, no matter what the truth. A good daughter simply would not begrudge a father anything, would she? Jesse was absently toying with his moustache again, resting his forefinger beneath his nose as he continued. "Doc told me once that you gave up your youth to care for an ailing father. I find that commendable." She glanced to his eyes to see if he was teasing again, but they were serious. "How long ago was that?"

She swallowed, weighing the risks of telling him things she never talked about. Finally she admitted,

"Thirteen years."

"When you were twenty?"

"Yes." Her eyes dropped to her lap again.

"What a waste," he commented quietly, making the skin at the back of her neck prickle. She didn't know what to reply or where to look or what to do with her hands. "It's not everyone who'd do a thing like that, Abbie. Do you regret it now?"

The fact that she did not deny her regret was the closest she had ever come to admitting it.

"When did he die?" Jesse went on.

"A year ago."

"Twelve years you gave him?" Only silence answered him while she demurely looked at her hands.

"Twelve years, and all that time you learned how to do all the things you do so well, all the things it takes to make a house run smoothly, and a family… yet you never had one. Why?"

She was startled and embarrassed by his question. She'd thought they had come to a silent agreement not to intentionally hurt each other anymore. But some shred of pride kept her eyes from tearing as she replied, "I believe that's obvious, isn't it?"

"You mean you had little choice in the matter?"

She swallowed, and her face became mottled. I should have known better than to confide in him, she thought, her heart near bursting with bitter pain.

"Until Melcher came along and I took the choice away from you by scaring him away."

She could not tolerate his barbs anymore. She flew from her chair to run, but he stopped her with a hand on her arm. "I see now I was wrong," he said quietly, making her eyes fly to his. It was the last thing she had expected him to say. It wilted her resolve to hate him, yet she was now afraid of what would take hate's place should she relinquish it.

"Do we have to talk about this?" she asked the tan hand upon her sleeve.

"I'm trying to apologize, Abbie," he said. "I haven't done it many times in my life." She looked up, startled, to find utter sincerity in his eyes, and her heart set up a flurry of wingbeats at the somber look he wore.

Knowing that once she said it she would be on even more precarious footing, she said anyway, "Apology accepted." His dark fingers squeezed her arm once, then slid away. But it felt as if he had branded her with that touch while he spoke the words she had never thought to hear from him.

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Miss Abigail kept her gardens just as fastidiously as she kept everything else, Jesse thought as he lounged against a tree, hands laced on his stomach, watching her. There was a predominance of blues, but being a man, he could not identify bachelor buttons, canterbury bells, or forget-me-nots, though he did know a morning glory. He squinted as Abbie flitted to explore them where they climbed a white trellis against the wall of the house. He almost expected her to dip and sip from one, he had thought of her as a hummingbird for so long. Lazy and sated, he watched her move from flower to flower. She leaned to pull an errant weed and he smiled privately as her derriere pointed his way. The backs of her calves came into view beneath her skirt. He closed one eye, leaving the other open as if taking a bead on her. When she seemed about to turn around, he pretended to be asleep. Then, in a moment, he carefully peered out at her again. Once more he assessed her slim ankles, realizing that she was a damn fine-looking woman.

Let that tight knot of hair down, unbutton a couple buttons, teach her it's all right to laugh, and she'd make some man sit up and take notice. Realizing what he was thinking, he shut his eyes completely and thought,
That hummingbird's not for you, Jess
. But then why had they goaded and fought with each other like they had? It had all the earmarks of a mating ritual and he knew it. Didn't the stallion bite the mare before mounting her? And the she-cat—how she screamed and growled and spit at the torn before he jumped her Even the gentle rabbits became vicious beforehand, the doe using her powerful back legs to box and kick the buck as if repulsed by him.

He studied Abigail McKenzie through scarcely opened eyelids. She picked some yellow thing and raised it to her nose. She had a cute little turned up nose.

He considered the hummingbird. Even its disposition turned pugnacious at mating time, both male and female becoming quarrelsome and snappish in their own avian way. He'd seen hummingbirds countless times in the woods, feeding from honey trees sweet with blossoms. Each male marked his feeding territory, defending it against all comers who sought to sip the nectar of his chosen flowers. He fought off all invaders until one special female arrived to tempt him. Together they would flit through the air flirting, toward and away from the prized flowers. Then, at the last, the female stilled her wings and hesitated just long enough for the male to mate with her, thus paying for the taste of his flowers before sipping quickly and caroming away too fast for the eye to follow.

He recalled how Abbie had withheld food from him, trying to starve him out of her house. He remembered all the teasing, the fighting, the baiting they'd each done.

She straightened and wiped her forehead with the back of a hand, her breast thrown into sharp relief against the mass of blue flowers behind her.

Damnit, Jess, get your carcass healed and out of here! he thought, and sat up quickly.

"What do you say we go for that ride?" he asked, needing some distraction.

She turned. "I thought you were asleep."

"I've slept so much in the last couple of weeks I don't care if I never do again." He wore a faint scowl as he looked away at the mountains.

"How is your skin?" she asked.

"Sour, I think. This buttermilk was soothing but I think it'd better come off before the neighbors start complaining." An amused smile lifted her lips and she wiped the back of her forehead again.

"I'll get some water. " Soon she returned with a basin of cold water, a cloth, and a bar of soap, placing them on the ground near him.

"Pew! You do stink!" she exclaimed, backing away.

"If you think it smells bad from over there, you should smell it from over here." Again she laughed, then sat down a proper distance away, tucking both feet to one side beneath her skirts, watching him draw the basin between his legs and lean over to bathe his face. He lathered his hands instead of the cloth, raised his chin, running the soap back around his jaw and neck. He rinsed, opened his eyes, and caught her watching him, and she quickly glanced off across the flats to where the mountains rose, blue-hued and hazy, even in the high daytime sun.

"It'd be nice to take a buggy ride out there," he said.

"But I don't own a buggy or a horse," she explained.

"Hasn't this town got a livery stable?"

"Yes. Mr. Perkins runs it, but I don't think it's a good idea."

"But Doc said it's okay. I've been up a lot. I was up all the while you were gone. I even washed my hair with soap and water, didn't you notice?"

Oh, she'd noticed all right. She could still remember the smell of it while he breathed into her breasts on the rocker this morning.

"Being up is different than riding along in a bumpy buggy." But she looked wistfully at the road, lifting smoothly out of the valley into the foothills that gently inclined toward the ridges above the town.

"Are you afraid to go for a ride with me?"

Startled because he'd guessed the truth, she was forced to lie. "Why… why no. No, why should I be?"

"I'm a wanted man."

"You're an injured man, and in spite of what Doc Dougherty says, I refuse to believe it could do you any good to go riding on a hard buggy seat."

"When's the last time you saw my wound, Abbie? Doc's been the one looking at it and he says buggy riding's okay."

"It's not a good idea," she repeated lamely, picking a blade of grass.

"It's not me you don't think should go off in a buggy, it's you. Admit it."

"Me!"

He squinted up at the mountains, while her eyes strayed to the black hairs on the tops of his bare toes. "I mean," he drawled, biting on a piece of grass now himself, "it would probably look pretty queer, Miss Abigail McKenzie renting a rig to take her train robber off to who knows where on a Sunday afternoon."

"You are not
my
train robber, Mr. Cameron, and I'd appreciate it if you'd not refer to yourself as such."

"Oh, pardon," he said with a lopsided smile, "then the town's train robber." He could see her weakening

—damnit, but she was getting to look more appealing by the minute—and he wondered if he should stay put.

"Why are you after me like this again? You promised you would behave."

"I'm behaving, aren't I? All I want to do is get out of here for awhile. Furthermore, I promised Doc I wouldn't harm you or try to escape. It's Sunday, everybody in town's relaxing and doing exactly as they please, and here you sit, gazing at the mountains from your hot backyard while we could be up where it's cooler, riding along and enjoying the day."

"I'm enjoying it right here—at least I was until you started with this preposterous idea." But she tucked a slim forefinger into the high, tight band of her collar and worked it back and forth.

He wondered if ever in her life she'd taken a buggy ride with a man. Maybe with that one thirteen years ago, she had. He found himself again trying to picture how she'd looked and acted when being courted.

"I wouldn't bite you, Abbie. What do you say?"

Her blue eyes seemed to appeal to him not to convince her this way, yet as her finger slid out of her collar her lips parted expectantly and she glanced once more at the mountains. Her cheeks took on a delicate pink color of her own primroses. Then she dropped her eyes to her lap as she spoke. "You would have to button up your shirt and put your boots on."

All was silent but for the chirp of a katydid. She raised her eyes to his and he thought, what the hell are you up to, Jess? He suddenly felt like some damn fool bumblebee sitting in her garden while she poised a glass jar above him, ready to slam it down and clap the cover on. But, against his better judgment, he smiled and said, "Agreed."

"Why, howdy, Miss Abigail," Gem Perkins said, answering her knock, trying hard not to show his surprise. Never before had she come to his door, but here she was, decked out flawlessly in white hat and gloves.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Perkins. I should like to rent a horse and buggy with a well-sprung seat. One that will jostle as little as possible."

"A buggy, Miss Abigail?" Gem asked, as if she'd requested instead a saddled gila monster.

"Do you or do you not rent buggies, Mr. Perkins?" she asked dryly.

"Why, o' course I do, you know that, Miss Abigail. I just never knew you to take one out before."

"And I wouldn't be now, except that Dr. Dougherty wants that invalid up at my place to grow accustomed to riding again so that he may be packed off on the train as soon as possible. However, we shall need an upholstered seat with lithe springs."

"Why, sure thing, Miss Abigail, upholstered seat and what was that other again?" He led the way to the livery, still surprised at her showing up here this way.

"Springy springs, Mr. Perkins," she stated again, wondering how long it would take for the news to spread to every resident of town what she was doing.

Jesse chuckled, watching her drive the rig up the street. He could see she didn't know the first thing about handling a horse. The mare threw her head and nickered in objection to the cut of the bit in Abbie's too-cautious hands. She pulled up in front of the pickets and he watched her carefully dismount, then swish up the walk. No, he decided, she'd never done anything like this before in her life.

By the time she entered the parlor, he was waiting on her graceful settee. Miss Abigail resisted the urge to laugh at how ridiculous he looked there—the only discrepancy in her otherwise tidy room. No, she thought, he'll never make
parlor fare
.

"The leg's a little stiff," he said, "and so is the new denim. Could you help me with my boots?" She looked down at his bare toes, chagrined to feel a peculiar thrill at the sight of them, then quickly she knelt and held first his socks, then his boots. They were fine boots, she noticed for the first time, well oiled and made of heavy, expensive cowhide. She wondered if he'd robbed a train to pay for them and was again surprised that the thought did nothing to deter her from wanting to ride out with him.

When the boots were on she rose, carefully avoiding looking at his dark-skinned chest behind the gaping garment. "You promised you'd button up your shirt," she reminded him.

He looked down at himself. "Oh, yeah." Then he struggled to stand clumsily on one foot, buttoned the shirt, then turned his back to her and unceremoniously unbuttoned his fly and began stuffing his shirttails in. Her cheeks flared red yet she stood and watched the play of his shoulder muscles while he made the necessary adjustments. Finally realizing what she was doing, she spun from the room and went to wait for him on the porch.

He stumped his way out on his crutches and moved to the side of the buggy. The denims were indeed very stiff. It immediately became apparent that he'd have trouble boarding. There was only a single, small footrest high on the buggy, and after three attempts to lift his foot to it, she ordered, "Wait on the steps and I'll pull up near them."