Small Town Girl (19 page)

The two of them took off through the trees, Graham in a slow lope and Birdie stirring up the leaves underfoot as she ran alongside him. The dog kept baying.

Kate leaned back against one of the trees. “Hearing Poe always gives me chills up my spine.”

“Good chills?” Jay stepped closer to her.

“Yeah, like sometimes when Lorena sings a song at church. The sound touches something inside me.” She was silent a minute, listening again. “It’s so natural, so right here in the woods. A dog on the trail of something.”

“The something—the raccoon—probably isn’t so happy to hear it.”

“The chased and the chaser. I guess when you think about it that way, you’re right. But I still like to hear Poe. Don’t you?”

“As long as it’s out here in the woods and not next to my bed. That dog can do some loud grumbling in his sleep.”

He was glad a shaft of moonlight was shining on Kate’s face so he could see her smile. He knew what was feeling so natural, so right. Her being there with him. It was the first time they’d been totally alone together since the wedding when the hayseed had spoiled their moment in that backyard. The Navy boy was clear across the country now. Jay and Kate were alone in the soft moonlight with Poe’s baying growing more distant, taking Graham and Birdie away from them.

The only one who could spoil this moment was Jay himself. That thought made his hands suddenly sweaty as his heart began thumping in his chest. When in the world had a girl ever had him feeling so worried about how she was going to like his kiss? And he was going to find a way to kiss her.

She shifted her position against the tree trunk as though the bark had suddenly begun to poke her. Her smile faded and she looked away from him toward where Graham and Birdie had disappeared into the shadows. An uneasy silence settled between them while the natural sounds of the woods started up again now that the dog had moved away. An owl screeched in the distance. Leaves rustled as a squirrel or perhaps a crafty raccoon moved in a tree behind them. He was so close to her that he thought she might hear the pounding of his heart as they stood frozen in the moment, waiting for a sign to let them know what to do next.

None came, but Jay wasn’t about to let this moment pass. He put one hand flat against the tree beside her head and leaned even closer to her. She slipped her eyes past his and looked down at the ground. He put a finger under her chin
and tipped her face back up until she was looking straight into his eyes.

“Can I ask you something?” His voice sounded odd in his ears. Almost hoarse. Too full of feeling.

“I suppose so.” Her words were a mere whisper sliding through the silvery moonlight to his ears.

What he wanted to ask was did she think she might ever be able to love him, but the words that actually came out were different. “How about we elope?”

“Now?” Her lips twisted a little as though she were trying to keep from smiling.

“Sure, why not? I’ve got gas in the car.”

A smile broke across her mouth. “One of these days I’m going to scare you to death and say, let’s go.”

He didn’t smile. Instead he kept staring into her beautiful eyes. “Please do.”

Her smile disappeared, but she didn’t look away. “You can’t elope with somebody you’ve never even kissed.” Her words were soft, hesitant, as though she wasn’t sure she should speak them aloud.

“We can fix that easy enough.”

He cupped her chin with his hand and bent down to cover her lips with his. At first she seemed uncertain, but then she stepped away from the tree into his embrace, her lips accepting his. Her hands slipped up around his neck, setting his skin on fire. Nothing mattered but her lips against his. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

By the time he lifted his lips away from hers, he could barely breathe. He pulled her close against him and soaked in the feel of her in his arms, her hair tickling his lips. He’d never felt this way after kissing any other girl. But then he’d never kissed Kate Merritt before. But he did want to again. And again and again.

I
n the moonlight, under trees that ever made her want to sing, with the sound of Poe’s baying music in the distance, had to be the perfect place and time for a kiss. A kiss she had practically demanded from him. A kiss that was so much more than she expected.

The touch of his lips set off such tremors inside her that she wasn’t sure the ground hadn’t suddenly begun shifting under her feet. She needed to grab hold of something to keep her balance, but instead of being sensible and leaning back against the sure and sturdy support of the tree behind her, she stepped straight into Jay Tanner’s arms and lost herself in his embrace. Of their own accord, her hands reached up around his neck to touch his hair and pull him even closer. The heat of his body against hers started her heart pumping as if she’d just run all the way to the store and back. Every inch of her skin was deliciously awake and tingling.

When at last he lifted his head and broke the contact of their lips, she grabbed in a breath of air like a drowning person managing to get her head above the water. But it wasn’t a bad feeling. Quite the contrary. She was ready to sink back into the lake of these feelings. She laid her head against his shoulder and could hear the blood pumping through him to match her own racing pulse.

He kissed her hair and her lips felt abandoned. She was sinking again and had no desire at all to grab for anything solid to hang on to. Instead she lifted her face up to let him capture her lips again. Feelings stirred awake within her that she had never even thought to imagine. She had once dreamed of being in love with Mike. A foolish fantasy. If this was the same and nothing but an impossible dream, the desire rose within her like a prayer to stay wrapped in the fantasy forever.

“I once danced in the moonlight.”

Fern’s voice shattered the spell over Kate, and she jerked back from Jay to look over her shoulder. Fern was watching them from the shadows, standing as rigid as one of the trees. Kate couldn’t see her face, but she felt her stare.

Jay loosened his embrace enough to allow Kate to turn toward Fern, but he didn’t let go. Instead he wrapped his arms about her waist and held her close against him. It seemed only natural to lean against his chest. A place that fit.

“Did it make you happy, Fern?” Jay asked as though it were the most natural thing in the world for the woman to appear in the night and catch them kissing.

“For a while.” Fern stepped out of the shadows closer to them. “That’s all a person should expect. A little while of happiness.”

“Sometimes a moment is enough.” Jay brushed his lips against Kate’s hair.

“Not for her,” Fern said, staring at Kate again. “That one always wants more. Just like I did.”

Kate found her voice. “Nothing wrong with wanting more of the good things.”

Fern made the harsh sound that passed for her laugh. “Things like moonlight kisses.”

“A fine thing,” Jay said. “Like your dance in the moonlight.”

To Kate’s surprise, Fern lifted her arms up over her head
and made a twirl around. For a few seconds, Kate was almost able to imagine the young, pretty girl she’d once been, dancing in the moonlight with her love, instead of the woman in front of her with barely combed gray hair and a shapeless dress hanging on her sturdy frame.

Fern’s twirl brought her nearer to Kate and Jay so that when she stopped, she was close enough to poke her finger against Kate’s arm. “Brother gave you this chance. He thinks you can learn to dance before it’s too late.”

“Maybe you can teach me,” Kate said softly.

“Can’t teach that dance. You have to learn it on your own.” Fern poked her again, hard enough to leave a bruise. “If you hear the music. That’s what matters. Hearing the music.”

“Do you still hear it?” Jay asked.

“People think I don’t. She thinks I don’t.” Fern pointed toward her, but Kate shrank back closer to Jay, who shielded her arms with his own before the woman could poke her again. Fern’s lips turned up a bare bit.

“I know you were in love once,” Kate said.

“Once.” Fern’s bare smile disappeared. “Death doesn’t stop the music. Just turns it sad.”

Before either Jay or Kate could speak then, she raised her head. “Brother’s coming.” Then, without rustling the first leaf or bush, she melted back into the shadows.

“Are you sure she’s real?” Jay asked when they could no longer see her.

“She’s very real.” Kate rubbed her poked arm and listened for Graham and Lorena, but all was silent. Even Poe’s baying had stopped. “And if she says Graham is coming, he is coming whether we can hear him or not.” She started to step away from Jay, but he kept his arms tight around her.

“I’m not listening for Graham,” he said. “I’m listening for music.”

“Do you hear it?” She turned to face him. For sure, she
was hearing something. A ringing in her ears. The pounding of her heart. The dry leaves above their heads rattling in the slight breeze. Was that music enough?

“I think I do.” He slipped one arm around her waist and held up his other hand to capture hers. “The moonlight awaits. Shall we dance?”

He kept his eyes intently on hers as they waltzed in the open space between the trees, moving as one. They didn’t speak. They let the moonlight music speak for them. When Jay began humming a tune, it perfectly matched the song burying itself in Kate’s heart.

She didn’t want the dance to ever end, but then Lorena and Graham came back and caught them gliding across the carpet of leaves as though they were on a polished dance floor.

Lorena stopped when she saw them and asked Graham, “What are they doing?”

“I can’t right say,” Graham said. “Except I’m pretty sure it don’t have anything to do with hunting coons.” He sounded extraordinarily pleased with himself, as if he’d just come up on a rich patch of ginseng.

Jay laughed and let go of Kate’s hand to reach toward Lorena. “The midnight band began playing, so we didn’t want the music to go to waste. Come on and dance with us.”

“You too, Graham.” Kate held her hand out toward him.

“Aw, Kate. I ain’t danced in I don’t know when. Since before the war.”

“Then now’s the time,” Kate said. “Grab his hand, Lorena. He’s not getting out of this.”

Lorena laughed and tugged Graham over to join hands with Kate before she grabbed Jay’s hand. “I didn’t know you could dance, Tanner.”

“Everybody can dance if they hear the right music.”

“I don’t hear any music,” Lorena said. “Nothing but an owl over yonder.”

“But you will hear it, Birdie. Someday, and then you’ll dance wherever you are as long as there’s moonlight.” Jay looked at Kate and his smile started up the music again.

Evie and Mike didn’t come home until Sunday morning the weekend after the raccoon hunting trip. They went straight to church from Frankfort. Mike was having to work on Saturday nights running the movie reels. To make extra money, Evie said. Starting up housekeeping cost money. And so did new dresses.

“Mike likes for me to look nice,” Evie said as she changed after church and carefully laid out the new brown dress on the bed. “I brought a couple of my old dresses home for you and Victoria. You’ll look good in this red one. And here’s a green one Mama can take up for Victoria. That girl is too skinny.” She pulled the dresses out of her bag and handed the red one to Kate. “You’re a little taller than me, but I hear skirts are going to be shorter this winter anyway.”

Kate held the dress up against her. It was a nice red with round, clear buttons down the front. “I don’t remember you ever wearing this.”

“Of course not. Why in the world I ever bought a red dress is beyond me. Everybody knows a redhead can’t wear red, but those buttons were so cute and it was dirt cheap on the bargain rack. I guess I thought I could go against the fashion sense, but fashion knows. I look awful in it, but you’ll look good.” Evie gave her the once-over.

Kate stared at her reflection in the dresser mirror. Maybe Jay liked red. She hadn’t seen him since they’d danced in the moonlight on Friday night. He’d made himself scarce the way he always did on Saturdays and Sundays. Going to the roadhouses in Edgeville, if Alice Wilcher could be believed. Maybe dancing with some other girl there.

A sick feeling ballooned up inside her. While they’d been in the woods with Jay’s arms around her, she hadn’t felt any worry at all. It was right. Very right. The memory of his lips on hers made her feel like spinning or running outside and across the field to the woods. She’d done that yesterday. On the way home from helping her mother in the store, she’d made a detour through the woods and stood in the same spot under the trees.

But there was no moonlight. No music floating in the air. What had Fern said? That the music stayed if one truly heard it. But if Kate had any music in her heart, it was frozen by the thought of Jay hearing music in the Saturday night roadhouses. Maybe asking some other girl to elope.

She’d been to a roadhouse once with Carl. He’d said it wasn’t a rough place unless a person wanted to make it a rough place. But Kate had seen plenty going on. Drinking and fist fights and loud talk. Places like that could be where her father had gone when he’d walked down the alcohol road and then came home carrying the sickening odor of drunkenness with him. He’d left that behind, and Kate was glad when she and Carl left the place behind that night last year.

She didn’t like to think about Jay doing all those things—drinking and talking too loud or dancing with who knew who. With real music playing in his ears. But wasn’t moonlight music better? It had to be. Magically better. She shut her eyes a moment and heard Jay humming in her ear. The only reason he wasn’t in Rosey Corner was because of Mike. It had nothing to do with him wanting to be at the roadhouse. Nothing to do with him being called by the drink the way her father had been years ago.

He’d be back in Rosey Corner tonight. After church. After he thought Mike was gone. She wouldn’t see him, but she’d know he was sleeping on the cot in Graham’s room over the blacksmith shop. Then Monday after he worked, his car
would be pulling up into their yard. Lorena would be running out to greet him and Kate would have to wrap her arm around the porch post to keep from running behind Lorena to do the same. But she’d wait for him to come to her. To raise his eyes and fasten them on her face. Just the thought of it made her heart beat faster as she stared at her reflection in the mirror.

“Whatever in the world is the matter with you, Kate?” Evie grabbed her shoulder and gave it a shake to bring Kate back to the present. “You haven’t heard a thing I’ve been saying.”

“Sorry, Evie.” Heat crawled up into Kate’s cheeks as she grabbed a hanger to drape the dress over it. “Thank you for the dress. I’ll wear it to church next week, unless you think the color might be too bright for church.”

“You can wear red to church. At least to our church. It’s not the devil’s color or anything. But maybe not to a funeral.”

“Why are you talking about funerals?” Kate frowned at her. “Has somebody died that I don’t know about?”

“Well, no, but people do die, and as a preacher’s wife, I’m going to be expected to make an appearance.”

“I’m sure you’ll be a great comfort to the bereaved.” Kate rolled her eyes at Evie. “Making your appearance in your somber black dress with hat and shoes to match.”

“A girl might as well look nice while she’s doing what has to be done. There are a lot of those kinds of things a preacher’s wife has to do. Whether she wants to or not. Marriage is not all fun and games, you know.”

Evie sounded so upset that Kate asked, “You and Mike have a fight?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” Evie waved her hand to dismiss that idea as she sank down on the bed and stared at her hands. “But it’s all so hard, Kate. Working all day and then coming home and having to cook and get the clothes washed and ironed. How can anyone expect me to be smiling all the
time? But the church ladies do. They’d think something was wrong if I wasn’t. Mike says I’m doing great, but he’s so busy working extra hours and then studying the Bible and trying to come up with what the Lord wants him to preach.” Evie looked up. “We don’t ever have time to just go out and have fun anymore. I wouldn’t have anywhere to wear that red dress even if I wasn’t a redhead.”