Hummingbird (27 page)

She had eyes for nothing but the shoes, which he could not see yet. She brought the package into the front parlor, crossed, and laid it on the dining room table at the far end, the wrapping paper address-side-up so there could be no mistaking the shoes were meant for her.

Jesse hobbled over to see what it was. "Where did you order those from?" he asked, surprised when he saw the scarlet shoes, for they didn't seem at all the kind of thing she'd choose.

"I didn't order them. They are a gift from David Melcher."

Suddenly Jesse needed a second look, and after taking it, decided he disliked the shoes wholeheartedly.

"
David
Melcher? My, my, aren't we becoming informal all of a sudden? And shoes yet! How shocking, Miss Abigail."

"I find it rather endearing myself," she said, fingering the leather, her mind scarcely on what she was doing. "Not the kind of gift that just any man would choose."

Jesse could sense her excitement as she let her fingers flutter over the red leather, butterfly like, touching the laces, the tongue, the toes, almost reverently.

"You can wear 'em over town every time you need a pig's bladder from the butcher shop," he said testily,

"or whenever you need to send a wire asking somebody to get rid of a gunslinger for you."

She was too happy to heed his attempt to snub the gift.

"Oh my, I fear I cannot wear them anyplace at all. They simply aren't—well, they're much too fine and elegant for Stuart's Junction."

A black scowl drew his eyebrows down. She was damn near fondling the red leather now, and her face wore a beatific expression while she raved on about the exquisite workmanship and the quality of the leather He'd never seen her glow so before, or bubble this way. Her eyes were as blue and bright as her morning glories, and her lips were parted in a rare, pliant smile. Watching it, he wanted to smack those damn red shoes from her hands.

But suddenly Jesse realized that Abbie's hair was less than tidy and she was wearing an old, shapeless dark floral shirt with sleeves rolled up to her elbows and a dishtowel tied triangularly around her belly.

She looked as ordinary as a scullery maid, and the effect was devastating. He found himself studying the knot of the dishtowel which rode the shallows of her spine.

"Oh, my heavens!" she said gaily, "you slept so late and here I stand gaping at these things while you're probably fit to starve." She plopped the cover back over the shoes and looked up to catch the dark frown on his face.

For a moment it seemed to Abbie that he'd grown taller overnight, but she suddenly realized why.

"Why, you're walking without crutches!" she exclaimed gladly. Then she thought, gracious, but he is tall!

And immediately afterward, gracious, but he is only half-dressed! He was shirtless and barefoot, as usual, wearing nothing but the new dungarees. "Now, Doctor Dougherty said you must take it a little at a time," she scolded, to cover her flustration at the sight of his bare skin.

Her concern assuaged some of the nettlesome annoyance he'd felt over the shoes, and his anger faded.

"I'm starved. What time is it?" He rubbed his hard, flat belly, pleased to see her eyes skitter away.

"Approaching noon. You slept very late." She turned toward the kitchen and he followed.

"Did you miss me?" He gave the shoebox a last scathing look and eyed that knotted dishtowel as it lifted perkily, bustlelike, with each step she took. She had one of the trimmest backsides he'd ever seen.

"I hardly had time. I was busy doing the washing."

"Oh, so that's why you're dressed like a scullery maid. I don't mind saying it's a pleasant change."

Suddenly she became self-conscious and began unrolling one of her shirtsleeves, flicking the folds down to cover her exposed arms, and he wondered if she'd have left them rolled up were he David Melcher.

The thought irritated him further.

"Dirty jobs do not magically get done," she said, all businessy again, efficiently buttoning up her cuffs, then reaching behind to untie her dishtowel. He was sorry to see it go as she set about preparing their noon dinner. There was no evidence of her having washed clothes in the kitchen, but outside he found lines strung now, holding bedding, dish-towels, and some skirts and blouses. Limping his way to the privy, he caught sight, too, of pantalets and chemises trimmed with eyelet, hidden as inconspicuously as possible behind the larger, more mundane pieces of laundry. The corset he'd imagined her in, giving her chronic gastric and emotional indigestion, was nowhere in evidence.

However, when he got back to the house he figured the reason it was not on the line was because it must be busily binding her up in knots! Her waspish temperament had inexplicably returned. She started in on him the minute he walked in the door.

"I've asked you not to go about undressed that way,
sir
!" she stated tartly, obviously in a snit over a damn fool thing like that.

"Undressed!" He looked down at himself. "I'm not undressed!"

"Where is your shirt!"

"It's in the bedroom, for God's sake!"

"
Mister
Cameron, would you set aside your own offensive vernacular until you are once again in the sort of company that will appreciate it?"

"All right, all right, what bit you all of a sudden?"

"Nothing
bit
me, I just—" But she turned away without finishing.

"A minute ago you were all sloe-eyed over old Melcher's shoes and now—"

"I was
not
sloe-eyed!" She spun, eyes snapping, hands on hips.

"Huh!" he snorted, gripping the edge of the highboy behind him, tapping out a vexed rhythm with his fingertips. "He lit you up like a ball of swamp gas with those… those pieces of frippery!" He flung a disparaging hand toward the dining room.

Her eyebrows shot up. "Yesterday you were telling me to throw caution to the wind and feel things.

Today you disparage me for a simple show of appreciation."

They stared at each other for a few crackling seconds before Jesse said the most absurd thing.

"But they're red!"

"They're what?" she asked, baffled.

"I said, they're red!" he roared. "The goddamn shoes are red!"

"Well, so what?"

"So… so they're red, that's all." He started pacing around in the corner by the pantry door, feeling silly.

"What the hell kind of woman wears red shoes?" he squawked, forgetting that he'd just been admiring the way that dishtowel made her look like precisely the kind of woman who might wear red shoes.

"Did I say I wanted to wear them?"

"You didn't have to say it. The look on your face said it for you."

She pointed out the back door. "While I am trying to preserve some decorum around here, you limp out to the outhouse, naked as a savage, then have the audacity to scold me for thinking I should like to wear red shoes!"

"Let's get the issue straight here,
Miss
Abigail. You're not mad about me going out in the open without a shirt and shoes. You're mad because I caught you looking sloe-eyed over those insufferable shoes!"

"And you're not mad because the shoes are red, you're mad because they're from David Melcher!"

"David Melcher!" he squawked disbelievingly, almost in her ear as she thundered past him into the pantry. "Don't make me laugh!" He followed right behind her, nose first, like a bloodhound. "If you think I'm jealous of a pantywaist like that—" But just then she swung around and stepped on his bare toe.

"Ouch!" he yelped, while she didn't even slow down or say excuse me.

"You wouldn't get stepped on if you'd dress properly." She clapped some dishes on the table.

"The hell you say! You did that on purpose!"

"Maybe I did." She sounded pleased.

He nursed his toe against his calf. "Over nothing. I didn't do a damn thing this time!"

But she whirled on him, pointing an outraged finger at the backyard. "Nothing, you say? How dare you, sir, walk across my yard dressed like
that
and gape at my underthings in front of the whole town!"

His eyebrows shot up and a slow smile crept across his countenance, lifting one corner of his moustache before it lit up his mischievous eyes and he started laughing deep in his throat, then louder and louder until at last he collapsed onto a chair.

"Oh you… you… just… just shut up!" she spluttered. "Do you want the whole town to hear you?" She clapped herself down on the chair opposite and created a gross breach of etiquette for Miss Abigail McKenzie, serving herself without waiting for him. She whacked the serving spoon against her plate, splatting potatoes onto it while he sat there snickering. Finally she shoved a bowl in his direction and grunted, "Eat!"

He loaded his plate in between maddening chuckles while she felt like kicking his bad leg under the table.

Finally he braced an elbow on the corner of the table, leaned near, and whispered very loudly, "Is it better if I whisper? This way the neighbors won't hear me." Even staring at her plate she could see that insufferable moustache right by her cheek. "Hey, Abbie, you know what I was looking for out there?

Corsets. I wanted to see just how much rigging I'd have to get through before I hit skin."

She dropped her fork and knife with a clatter and left her chair as if ejected from it, but he made a grab and caught her by the back of her skirt.

"Let me go!" She yanked at the skirt, but he hauled away and pulled her back between his spraddled thighs while her arms flailed ineffectually.

"How many layers are under there, Abbie?" he teased, trying to get an arm around her waist and pull her down to his lap. She yanked and slapped and tried to free her skirt but he hauled it in like lanyard, all the while chortling deep in his throat.

"Get away!" she barked while he got her up against his lap like a schooner against a piling. She battled frantically, then luffed around till she could push against his shoulder, still trying to control her skirt with the other hand.

His smile was wicked, his hands deadly, as he breathed hard in her ear, "Don't you wear petticoats, Abbie? Come on, let's see." They were a dervish of arms and hands and elbows and petticoats and knees by this time. He gained and she struggled. He captured and she flapped. He fended off a misaimed slap, feinting back expertly while she rapidly lost ground.

"You maniac!" she bellowed, clawing his fingers loose from her wrist.

"Come on, Ab, quit teasin'." He got her wrist again, tighter than before.

"Me! Let me go!" she squawked. But somehow he had her turned around facing him. He pulled her up against his crotch, her thigh against his vitals while she fell upon his stone-hard chest. But once more she yanked loose, spun in a half turn till his hands got her by the hips and took her into port again.

"God, can you scrap for such a hummingbird," he puffed. And as if to prove it she almost got away. But his powerful arm caught her waist and she felt her backside hauled unceremoniously against his lap.

"Ugh!" he grunted when she hit his sore leg, but his grip held at her waist.

"Good!" she spit, "I hope I hurt you! Get your hand down! Leave my buttons alone!"

He had her from behind, cinched the arm tight around her little middle, grappling for the buttons at her throat with his other hand. He managed to get one undone while she struggled to snatch his hand away and contend with the other that snaked up her midriff to her breast.

"Come on, Abbie, I won't hurt you." Her struggle only seemed to amuse him further while the skirmish at her blouse front went on.

"I'll hurt you any way I can!" she vowed—a mosquito threatening a rhinocerous. "I warn you!" She struggled valiantly, breathless now, but he kept her pinned so tightly she couldn't get far enough away to do any damage.

"God, how I like you in this old faded shirt," he panted, and somehow managed to spirit a second button free while she tried to seize both of his hands and gain her freedom at the same time.

"You filthy louse… I hope they… hang you!" she grunted.

"If I hang…" he grunted back, "at least give me… one last… sweet memory to take al… along." He had one breast now and she twisted around violently while he ducked to avoid a flying elbow.

"Atta girl, Abbie, turn around here where I can get at you." His black moustache came swooping for her mouth, but she clutched a hank of hair at his temple and pulled with all her might.

"Ouch!" he yelped, and she yanked harder until suddenly, unexpectedly, he released her. Sprawled as she was, she went down at a full slide, landing on her knees with her mouth just above his navel. But her elbow caught him precisely in the spot where he'd been shot, and he gasped and stiffened back, arms outflung, as if she'd just crucified him to that chair. His throaty groan told her the battle was over.

She scrambled up out of his thighs, fastening her two neck buttons while his eyes remained closed, the lids flinching. His lips had fallen open, his tongue tip came out to ride the lower edges of his even, upper teeth, then he sucked in a long, pained breath and looked up at the ceiling, with his head still hanging backward. Limply he touched the hair at his temple, massaging it gingerly while she watched, quivering and wary. His arm flopped back down and he finally grunted, pulling himself up by degrees until he was L-shaped again. The silence in the room was rife as he leaned an elbow on either side of his plate and stared down at it as if some piece of food there had moved. She eased to her chair, sat with her hands in her lap, then listlessly picked up a knife that was stuck at a precarious angle into a mound of mashed potatoes. She cleaned it off against the edge of her plate and laid it down very carefully and still neither of them said anything. She tried a bite, but it seemed to stick in her throat. He raised his head and stared past her down the length of the house, out the front door. There was no use pretending to eat, so she carefully wiped her mouth, folded her napkin, laid it down precisely, as if awaiting her penance.

He knew now why he'd done it. It really came as no surprise to him to find that he was jealous, just that he should be so over a woman like her. Yet, never had he been able to make her smile, laugh, or twinkle as that pair of shoes from Melcher had done.