Kit Gardner (17 page)

“I don’t want to, Mama.”

“Go along, Christian.” And then her voice dropped to a soft, cajoling murmur, and Rance could only imagine what she’d whispered to the boy when he bounded from the kitchen and out the back door with a barely audible “I apologize” trailing in his wake.

“I don’t believe I heard that, young man,” Halsey said with a sniff, and then the back door again banged closed as Halsey left the house.

“Tell me you’re not going to marry him,” Rance growled the moment she entered the room.

Jessica paused, pressed trembling fingers to her temples, then brushed past him to slip on her thick-soled shoes. “I was hoping you’d had the good sense to disappear.”

“No chance of that, sweetheart,” he muttered, watching her move to her dresser to take up a swift and furious brushing of her hair. In no time, she’d twisted the tumbling mass into a neat and demure little knot at the top of her head. With a certain viciousness, she stuck pins into the knot, then snatched up the straw hat with the thin blue ribbon and turned again to brush past him and out of the room.

Only he caught her by the arm and drew her all but out of those damned shoes, flush against him. “I’m going to be at that wedding, Jess. And you’re going to dance with me.”

“I will do no such thing.”

“Because of your noble Avram? He’ll never make you happy.”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “As if you know precisely what might.”

He stared at her mouth. “I have an idea.”

“Indeed. Then why is it that I am perversely unhappy at the moment?”

“Because you’d rather kiss me than marry Avram and live with him in his little house in Twilight. And you don’t want to go to a wedding with him and dance with him—”

“I’ll have you know Avram doesn’t dance.”

“Ah. Then you can dance with me.”

“Stop.” She twisted from him then, with a frustrated cry, tears shining suddenly in her eyes. “Do you understand that I have no other choice but to marry him?”

“Hell, Jess, you’ve many choices.”

“No, I have many temptations, but few real choices. So very few. I’m a woman, after all.”

And with that she fled the room. Moments later, the back door slammed, and then Halsey’s buggy moved off down the road.

As he stepped from the back door into the sunlight, Rance thought of Abigail Spotz, of something she’d said to him that day when she helped him escape and refused to leave her husband.

We women have so few choices in this life. And what few we have are decided for us by men.

He shoved a hand through his hair, rubbed the ache mounting at the base of his neck, and set out with purposeful strides toward the barn. What the hell was happening to him? Ruminating on about women and their lot in life, as if he had any business meddling in Jess’s any more than he already had. Damned whiskey had gotten the better of him. And her, as well. But could a man be faulted for losing all his sense if he found himself half clothed with a woman in her bed?

Absolutely not.

He entered the barn with renewed vigor. “I have a barn to repair, dammit,” he announced to Jack, who was soundly tethered near the back of the barn. The horse bobbed his head, blew his nostrils furiously, and showed Rance the whites of his eyes. “And all those leaks in the kitchen ceiling to patch, and painting to be done. More than a solid couple months’ worth of work. I’d best be about it—” he shoved his hands on his hips and scowled “—the better to get the hell out of here.”

And then he commenced with a pacing to and fro about the barn, inspecting for any damage caused by the storm. “No more of that foolish talk of dancing at weddings. Hell, I can’t stand weddings. Avoid them entirely. Nothing but romantic nonsense for fools.” He paused and glanced at Jack. “I’m certain you agree. And if she gets it into her head to dance, let Halsey take care of her.” He scowled at Jack, then bellowed, “She’s going to marry the man, isn’t she?”

With a growl, he turned from Jack, idly wondering to what new depths he’d now sunk to have sought advice from a horse. “Damned infuriating woman,
allowing
me to make love to her.
Asking
me to kiss her, then
kissing me back,
if you can believe that. Drank all that whiskey last night, until she couldn’t walk, just to get me to stay with her in that bed. And she talks about temptations. Ha! Let the good reverend have her.” He found himself crouched next to the trunk where he stored his clothes, his fingers seeking his finest white cotton shirt. “Besides, I’ve determined to keep a low profile, haven’t I? No sense showing my face off any more than I already have—”

Speaking of his face... He rubbed a hand over the day’s growth of stubble. She sure as hell wouldn’t agree to dance with him if he didn’t shave. No, indeed. And while he was at it, his hair needed a thorough combing and his boots a good shining....

* * *

“Jessica, if you look off down Main Street one more time, I’m liable to spill all this fine sarsaparilla on your dress. And then you won’t be able to take any turns around the dance floor.”

Jessica lifted her face into the sun. “Just catching what’s left of the breeze, Louise.”

“Funny, but I believe the breeze is coming from the other direction. Oh, but, silly me, wouldn’t Logan Stark have to ride his horse smack down the middle of Main Street to get here?”

“I suppose he might,” Jessica replied airily, ignoring the cheek in her friend’s tone as she peeked between her lashes yet again down that thoroughfare. Still no sign of Stark or his black horse. Not that that upset her in any way...

“An odd preoccupation you have with the man, Jessica.”

“Not so odd. He is my farmhand.”

“Oh, yes. Those fellows do have a nasty habit of turning up at weddings. Not a thing for him to do out at the farm today, hmm?”

“He was invited.”

“Of course he was invited. I’m of the mind that Dolly planned the wedding today simply to give all the womenfolk an opportunity to feast their eyes upon him. Other than John, of course, he’s by far the best-looking piece of male flesh to have ever graced our fair town. It’s all Sadie McGlue can do to contain herself about him. And Dolly going on and on—quite uncharacteristic of a bride, not to mention her entire quilting circle. You’d think the sun rose and set on the man’s black hair and blue eyes.”

“They’re not blue. They’re a soft golden color.”

“Is that so?”

Jessica caught her friend’s coyly arched brow, squared her shoulders and made a great to-do of fiddling with the straw purse in her lap. “Go on about your business, Louise, and leave me to sit here.” She waved a gloved hand over the throng gathered just outside Twilight’s small whitewashed church. They’d assembled here after the short ceremony, to dine on iced cakes and sarsaparilla, and to dance to three lively fiddlers’ music, all beneath a wicked afternoon sun. “John looks positively out of sorts over there with all the menfolk. You’d best tend to him. He can barely keep his eyes from you.”

“Indeed,” Louise crooned, slanting her husband a decidedly provocative look from beneath the fringe of her stylish fuchsia hat. “And well he should. He’s never cared for any of those puffed-up fellows from back east. All well and good, I say. We have no land to sell. A despicable lot, they are. Entirely ill-mannered. Conducting their business at a wedding, of all places.”

Jessica peered closer at the cluster of brown and black bowlers, and the three mustached faces beneath, puffing heartily upon cigars. “What business could they possibly conduct here?”

Louise gave a delicate snort. “The business of intimidation, my dear. Poor Mabel Brown and all her acres are their latest prey. I fear she won’t be able to withstand it. For some, money can be a most powerful lure.”

“Perhaps,” Jessica murmured, her gaze alighting upon stooped Mabel Brown, her silvered head bowed low in conversation with Avram.

“Ah, Avram is consoling the poor woman,” Louise observed. “No doubt fortifying her defenses. Such a kind man, your Avram.”

“Yes,” Jessica heard herself say, even as Mabel shook her head, then slanted the group of men from the East a look that no doubt cursed them all for the rest of their days. A smile quivered upon Jessica’s lips. “Yes, thank heavens for Avram. Poor John is far too distracted by his wife.”

Louise laughed low and husky. “Why, of course he is. After all, he knows what I’ve got on under this gown.”

“I don’t want to know,” Jessica said quickly, sitting forward on her chair to peer about the throng as though in desperate search of someone.

“It’s a shift,” Louise whispered mischievously.

Jessica kept her gaze before her, seeking her son somewhere in the crowd. She spied Avram again, now lingering among the menfolk, a serious expression hardening his features. He looked somewhat like a turtle of a sudden, eyes protruding behind thick glasses, nose hooked, insignificant chin disappearing into his high celluloid collar.... The face of her beloved...and he hadn’t once glanced her way since she’d sat down.

“A shift of the sheerest silk you can imagine.”

Something in Louise’s husky voice, which barely concealed the mischief of a wife in love with her husband, should have sent at the very least a mild thrill through Jessica as she looked into the face of the man she was to marry and envisioned the sheerest silk shift imaginable...should certainly not have prompted this sudden urge to flee for her very life.

“I can even see my nipples.”

Jessica closed her eyes and shuddered clear to her core. “How I can allow you to remain my best friend...”

“Posh. You love it.”

“I don’t know what the devil you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do, otherwise you wouldn’t be turning those shades of red. Imagine, Jessica, having the man you love see you in such a thing. It renders them quite speechless. And you entirely in control...if you can manage it. Oooh, just thinking about it makes me shiver.”

Jessica, too, felt a delicious shiver race up her spine the precise instant a forbidden image took shape in her mind, swiftly, with such frightening clarity... Her, clad in some filmy thing, standing before a mirror, and a broad-shouldered shadow looming behind her, flames dancing in those golden eyes.

“You’re with child, Louise,” she blurted, barely able to keep herself from fanning her cheeks. “Why have you a need for such a thing?”

“Because if I waddle around in awful sacks and frumpy old chemises, my husband might think I simply look a bit fat. And I can’t have that. No, not for one minute. He might never forget that image. Besides, I want to dance and, God knows, John won’t allow it unless I have something to bribe him with. Now come on. They’re both standing there looking like they need us quite desperately.”

Desperate? Avram? No, she wouldn’t recognize such a look on him. How could Louise? Still, Jessica allowed her friend to grab her hand and pull her along behind her. “I’m not going to dance, Louise, and Avram certainly won’t. If he’s desperate for anything from me, it’s for more sarsaparilla.”

“Good. Then I’ll tend to Avram’s thirst, and you can dance with John.”

Jessica planted her feet in the dust, only to find herself skidding along behind her friend. She glared at Louise’s jovially bouncing chestnut curls. “No. I can’t. He’s your husband. It wouldn’t be— That is, Avram will be— And I cannot find Christian—”

“Posh. I see Christian over there. Looks fine to me. A bit dirty and mussed, wearing everything he ate today, but fine just the same. And as for Avram, he certainly can’t expect a young woman to be content for the rest of her life to sit out and watch every reel pass her by, simply because her betrothed cannot manage to put one foot gracefully in front of the other.”

“Now, that’s not quite fair, Louise. Avram has tried—”

“Not quite hard enough, to my eye. And you need to kick up your heels far more than I do at the moment.”

“What the devil does that mean?” But she was never to receive her reply. John French materialized from the throng before her, gave a gallant bow, grabbed her elbow and hauled her out into the sea of twirling couples. She had no choice but to follow. After all, she could hardly embarrass a kind and very game man like John French, no matter that the whole affair smacked of careful scheming and manipulating on Louise’s part.

Jessica hadn’t danced a reel in years, not since her father had first taught her how. Oh, she’d since sat upon the edge of innumerable makeshift dance floors, toe tapping to the fiddle, eyes following the graceful dancers as they spun past her, their skirts billowing with a wondrous abandon. She hadn’t precisely envied them, merely contented herself with her lot and refused to ponder anything else. Yet she couldn’t deny that she’d lain awake many a night thereafter and envisioned herself spinning about the floor, held loosely in a man’s arms.

Only the man certainly hadn’t been her best friend’s husband. And he hadn’t been Avram Halsey or Frank Wynne. He’d been some faceless, nameless stranger she’d never thought to know.

The reel ended, sooner than Jessica would have liked. She thanked John, then turned to seek Avram, who had managed to disappear somewhere in the crowd, only to feel an arm slip around her waist. That simple touch should have told her...and all the warm ripples dancing through her. Yes, she should have instinctively known the touch was not John’s, that those fingers gripping her waist could belong to only one man. Perhaps she did know, and for that reason swayed toward him, momentarily unable to do anything else.

And then she was again spinning about the floor and staring into glorious golden eyes.

“You didn’t think I was going to let you waste that smile on John French, did you?” Stark said, his voice warmly hushed and disturbingly intimate. His hold upon her was firmly gentle, yet her toes barely skimmed the ground as he easily swung her about. “Come now, Jess, don’t start frowning again. Surely you don’t think John French a better dancer?”

“This is awful,” she choked out, even as she clung to his shoulder and felt the untested strength in his every agile movement. She dared not glance up at him, or the sky would never cease its spinning overhead in shades never bluer, the ground its tilting beneath her feet. Her lungs filled with midsummer scents stoked by the rain of last eve, the pulsing warmth of the sun, this man towering above her, so undeniably male...smelling of windblown cotton and a hint of some spicy cologne. She could barely catch her breath. “Stark, please—”