Marrying Stone (9 page)

ROE'S MUSCLES ACHED and the back of his neck was red and scorched from the sun. He carried the bucket of fresh eggs he had collected from the wily and cantankerous old hens into the cabin.

For three days he'd been living and working like an Ozark farmer. It wasn't a role he had taken up without a bit of protest. He had tried more than once to pay Onery Best for his room and board. Cash money was clearly in short supply. Still, the old farmer had insisted that work was what they needed. So with a willingness that was born of years of fitting in at schools and among strangers, Roe had "put his hand to the plow" both figuratively and literally.

He didn't expect thanks, and he certainly didn't get it from Meggie Best. It was a curious situation—one he'd never encountered before. First she'd jumped on him as if he were her long-lost lover and now she avoided speaking to him as if he were contagious.

"Good morning," he said evenly when he saw her. No matter how remote she appeared, civility was second nature to Roe Farley. He would treat his worst enemy with politeness. Meggie Best wasn't his worst enemy.

Her vague nod of acknowledgment irritated him. He could well remember the warmth of her smile as she gazed at her brother. Though she wasn't the musician her father and brother were, it was clear she was the brightest in her family. If only she would acknowledge him, he felt they could be friends of a sort.

"Thought I'd try to be of help to you." He set the egg bucket on the chopping stump and smiled.

She nodded wordlessly.

Her iciness irked him and prompted him to teasing. "I wanted to give you more time to burn the biscuits."

She glared at him but held her tongue as her father and brother walked in the door.

"Meggie-gal," Onery said as he made his way to the table. "It's mighty early in the morning to be having a lovers' spat." The old man chuckled at his own joke.

Roe had had quite enough of that nonsense himself and took his own seat at the table.

The three men sat together every morning in the gray light to plan the day's work. Roe had come to look forward to these moments. The camaraderie of working toward a common goal and the warmth of the two men beside him were new experiences for him. His hands were already callusing over and although he knew he was yet no farmer, he was working hard and he thought he might well be shouldering his share of the work. Meggie set his tin of cornmeal mush down on the table in front of him without a word. The finely carved wooden spoon, her spoon, was dipped in the mush.

Roe murmured his thanks but when he glanced in her direction she'd already turned her back on him.

"Meggie darlin'," Onery said loudly with a teasing wink toward Roe. "Feigning disinterest is right ladylike and all, but if you don't get out of this snit, the fellow's gonna plumb lose interest in ye."

Meggie shot her father a furious look that only made him laugh harder.

"She's really quite good-natured when you get to know her," Onery told Roe.

Roe smiled and cleared his throat a little uneasily. Still, as he watched Meggie bend over to hang the cookpot back on the fireplace crane, he once more regarded the young lady with favor. She was a fine-looking woman, he thought, and she probably should have married long ago. Roe fervently wished that she had.

Uncomfortably, he vividly remembered the sweet taste of her mouth and the pleasant roundness of her bottom against his lap.

The young woman stood up quickly and almost caught Roe admiring her. Determinedly, he turned his attention to his plate, raising his foot up to rest it on the first rung of the chair. This caused his knee to jut out from the edge of the table.

"You got a rip in your trousers," Jesse commented.

Roe glanced down and nodded. The three days of hard physical labor was more than the knees of his gray and brown striped worsted trousers had ever been expected to endure.

"Perhaps I can borrow a needle and thread," he said.

"You can sew?" Onery asked with surprise.

"No, not really," Roe admitted.

"Then let Meggie tend your tears," the old man said. "She's right handy with her needlework."

Meggie approached him, giving a studied glance to the ripped knee where the small expanse of pale flesh was exposed.

"Those trousers weren't made for working," she commented.

Roe agreed.

"I'll stitch 'em up for you, but I'd best be making you some butternuts."

"Butternuts?"

Jesse slapped his knee. "Butternuts like mine," he said.

Roe looked over at the trousers Jesse wore. The heavy dark yellow fabric was homespun and looked sturdy enough to withstand a stampede of wild boars. The homemade breeches were straight cut and wide enough in the leg to fit two men his size.

"If you're going to be working here," Onery agreed, "then you oughter have butternuts. Ain't no need for you to be ruining your good clothes."

Roe nodded, civility preventing him from mentioning that the trousers he wore were far from his best.

"I don't wish to put you to any extra effort on my part, Miss Best," he said.

Meggie raised her chin defiantly, seeing insult where none was intended. "My cloth is as good as any on the mountain," she said with some pride. "They're not city clothes, but they'll keep you from being threadbare. Jesse can cut you some galluses and show you how to attach them through the hitches with a peg and a horseshoe nail."

Roe stared in daunted wonder.

She continued. "I can sew up your good trousers and wash them clean for Sundays."

"That would be very nice, Miss Best," he said. "I thank you."

Meggie's lip stiffened to one thin line as if he'd said something indiscreet and Jesse giggled.

"You'll have to measure the feller, Meggie," Onery said. "He ain't neither my size nor Jesse's."

She blushed then. "I couldn't
measure
him," she answered in a scandalized whisper. "I'll just make them the same as Jesse's."

Roe nodded and turned to look at Jesse, who was quite a bit larger than himself and whose pants hung upon him like two sacks seamed together.

Onery began to chuckle.

"We praise her biscuits and her pies, Her doughnuts and her cakes.

But where's the man who sighs for pants Like Mama used to make."

Jesse snickered at his father's joke.

Meggie's expression turned from embarrassment to anger. "I'll measure him all right!" she said. "I'll make his butternuts to fit slicker than skin if he wants."

Roe reached over and took Meggie's hand and her eyes widened. Since their first embarrassing encounter, she had held her distance from him and he likewise. The trousers were being offered as a token of friendship, he was sure. And he wasn't about to let her father's teasing undermine that first step toward a more amiable relationship.

"I really do need the trousers," he said. "I hate to put you to the bother of sewing for me, but I would be very grateful."

"It's no trouble," she answered quietly. "I'll measure you after breakfast."

'Thank you, Meggie," he said.

Her father and brother's laughter faded away and Meggie nodded solemnly as she turned back to the fire.

Roe turned his attention back to breakfast. Onery began a long-winded story about the winter he'd had to make his own clothes out of hides and nearly got shot by mistake for being a bear. Again and again, Roe found his eyes and his attention returning to Meggie as she padded around the room in her bare feet.

He felt a light tap on his shoulder and turned to Jesse beside him, who was grinning with glee. The young man pulled something long and skinny out of his shirt pocket. At first Roe thought it was a piece of rawhide, but when Jesse lay the thin brown item on the table it twisted and wiggled.

Roe watched as Jesse held a finger to his lips to shush him. Casting a cautious glance toward his sister, Jesse carefully covered the squiggly little worm with Meggie's coffee cup.

They only had to wait a minute before Meggie took her place at the end of the table. Jesse was concentrating on the mush in his tin and Roe decided to do the same. He couldn't quite keep himself from occasional glances toward Meggie, who was listlessly stirring her mush with a makeshift spoon she'd fashioned for herself. Roe was still using hers.

As Roe watched he realized that the expression on Meggie's young face had changed. Slowly the worry and anger had faded from her brow and her visage was pretty and serene. She was obviously a million miles away from the dark, crowded little cabin in the Ozarks. It was a dreamer's expression, far removed from the hard work of everyday mountain life. Roe felt a strange yearning to touch her. But it passed as she raised her eyes to catch him watching her. Immediately, they glanced away, turning their attention back to the food upon the table. There was a strange bond between them that was disconcerting for them both.

When Meggie finally reached for her coffee mug, the worm, released from its prison, squiggled across the oilcloth on the table.

Meggie gasped, spilled her coffee, and jumped from her chair. Beside Roe, Jesse began to giggle cheerfully. Onery joined the chorus with a low, hearty chuckle.

"I hate varmints!" she screamed vehemently.

Gathering her wits about her, Meggie grabbed the unwelcome creature and threw it into the fireplace where the popping and hissing distinctly announced its demise. Scaring Meggie with unexpected small creatures was apparently so common an occurrence that not even a word was said.

But her brother, being cautious, didn't give her the time to get her anger wound up. Jesse jumped from the table and slammed his hat.

"Got to get to them hogs," he said as he hurried out the door.

Onery was chuckling also, but there was no rash to his gait as he left the table.

"You get some butternuts made for this feller of yourn, Meggie-gal. Roe, just take yer time here and mosey on out to help us when yer a mind to."

Meggie was blushing. Roe felt more than a little bit uncomfortable himself. He glanced around the woodbeam room where he was left alone with the daughter of the house.

"Well, let's get it over with," she said hastily as she rose from the table.

"You haven't finished your breakfast," Roe told her.

She shrugged and gathered up her straw sewing basket. "There is no call for you to be lolling around the cabin all day. I'll get your measure and send you on your way."

It sounded like a sensible plan. "Where do you want me to stand?" he asked.

"Here is the light," she said, pointing to the big rectangle of sunshine that shone along the dirt floor in front of the doorway.

Meggie's measure was a long piece of rough cord. When she wrapped it around his waist, Roe raised his arms out of her way. She was very close and Roe closed his eyes to savor the moment. Her scent was sweet and it was woman. A combination that had been absent from Roe's life for what now seemed a very long time. The touch of her hands at his waist was gentle, but sure. And once more he recalled the hot wonder of their illicit kiss. He recalled it with great pleasure.

"Your waist is half a hand narrower than Jesse's," she commented as she marked the spot on the cord by tying a knot in it. "Guess they don't have much good cooking back in the Bay State."

Her attempt at levity was a brave one and Roe wanted to answer with an equally lighthearted statement about the quality of her own cooking, but the words were stuck in his throat. She was close, very close. And he was enjoying it far too much.

"I'm gonna measure your pants leg," she said calmly. She dropped to her knees on the floor in front of him. Her voice was businesslike, but a slight blush crept up her cheek.

Roe looked down at her kneeling at his feet. The top of her head came almost exactly to the top button of his trousers. The dark, honey-blond hair parted so perfectly in the middle and the long hank of braid fell down toward her waist. From this vantage point, his hands would have felt so natural resting upon her shoulders, coaxing and caressing.

"Hold this," she said, placing one end of the cord against his waist just above his hip bone.

Roe did as he was told and then held his breath as she smoothed the cord down the outside of his leg to his ankle. She marked the spot on the cord with her fingernail and then carefully tied the knot. She wasn't hesitant then as she looked up at him.

She rewound a portion of the length of cord. Her cheeks were flushed, but her expression was determined.

"I need to measure your inseam."

Was it his imagination, or could he feel the warmth of her breath against his wool worsteds?

She held up the cord to begin.

He stepped back away from her.

"I've got a better idea," he said.

She sat back on her haunches, waiting.

"I'll take off my trousers and you can measure the pants instead of the man. That will be better don't you think?"

Meggie wanted to tell him that the measuring was nearly over, but she suddenly didn't want to be any closer to him either. She nodded.

"But what will you wear while I measure?" she asked. "You just can't stand around here in your… in your… well, you have to wear something."

Roe glanced around at the profusion of throws and rugs and for a moment his glance lingered on the tablecloth.

"Maybe I could wait outside," he suggested.

"What if someone were to come by?"

With a shrug, Roe imagined the scene. A Marrying Stone matron coming to visit would find him standing outside half-naked. It wouldn't work.

They stood together for a long moment, considering the possibilities.

"Get into the bed," Meggie told him at last.

"What?"

"Get into Pa's bed, take your pants off under the covers and hand them to me."

Roe glanced toward the sturdy bed. It seemed like a reasonable solution, but he was hesitant.

"It's the only thing to do," Meggie told him. "The only place where it's decent not to have your pants on is in the bed."

Roe reluctantly agreed. He walked over to the bed. While seating himself on the edge to take off his shoes, he glanced up. Meggie was watching him closely as if expecting something. She turned her back at last, but it didn't make the situation seem any less uneasy.