This Side of Heaven (12 page)

“You’ll look so handsome with your hair cut so as to show off your face. And you’ll be able to see a whole lot better,” Caroline coaxed, edging toward him with the stealthy movements a hunter might have used toward a rabbit.

“No!”

“Now, Davey …” said Daniel quietly.

“What’s the matter?” asked Robert, poking his head in the door from the front room, where he’d been working.

“ ’Twould be best if you just left the boy alone.” Thomas, openly hostile, had come to join Robert in the doorway. Davey, sensing which uncle would prove his best ally, moved away from Daniel to edge around the perimeter of the room toward Thomas.

“Thorn, you’re not helping matters,” Daniel chided.

“I don’t suppose the boy has to get his hair cut if he doesn’t want to,” Thomas returned.

Caroline, gritting her teeth, willed her expression to remain pleasant.

“Davey, surely you’re not afraid of a little thing like getting your hair cut! Why, it won’t hurt a bit!” she said.

Davey gained Thomas’s side and clung to his leg like a limpet.

“Don’t let her touch me, Uncle Thorn! I hate her!”

“David Mathieson!” Matt appeared in the keeping
room door, shrugging out of his coat and bringing a whiff of cold night air with him. His eyes fastened warningly on his younger son. “You will be polite to your Aunt Caroline, do you hear me?”

“But, Pa, she wants to cut my hair!” Davey wailed, and abandoned Thomas to hurtle toward his father. He wrapped his arms around Matt’s leg just as he had Thomas’s. Matt put his hand on the child’s head, smoothing Davey’s hair off his forehead as the boy looked pleadingly up at him,

“Mine too!” John put in hurriedly.

“It looks to me like you both could use haircuts,” Matt said.

“Pa!” The boys responded in identical tones of betrayal.

“In fact, I fancy we all could.” Matt looked across the room at Caroline. “Including me. Think you’re up to taking on so many?”

“Why—certainly.” If she was faintly taken aback at the idea of performing so intimate a task for Matt—and, of course, his brothers—she had enough presence of mind not to let it show.

“Good, then. Who’ll be first?”

“Let’s draw straws!” said John, sounding suddenly enthusiastic.

“Good thinking.” Matt went into the keeping room, where he pulled straws from the broom kept there and emerged with six of them sticking out of his fist. “Short one’s first. John?”

John drew a straw.

“Davey?”

“But I don’t want my hair cut, Pa!”

“Davey!”

Davey drew a straw.

“Rob?”

Robert drew a straw.

“Dan?”

Daniel drew a straw.

“Thom?”

“Wait a minute! I don’t think I want my hair cut, either!”

Matt fixed him with a look. Thomas drew a straw.

“So where’s the short one?” John demanded, frowning. Everyone held up his straw.

“Pa has it!” Davey exclaimed with delight, and it was true. Matt had been left with the short straw. He looked at it for a moment, appeared slightly nonplussed, then glanced over to where Caroline stood watching him. If she felt a trifle nervous, she was determined not to let it show.

“Sit down, then,” she said as casually as possible, indicating the chair she had set out. “And we’ll get it done. And it won’t hurt a bit, either.”

“You relieve my mind.” If there was an edge of dryness to that, Caroline took it in good part. Indeed, the prospect of having Matt at her mercy, even for so small a matter as the cutting of his hair, made her spirits rise enormously. Just let him say one unpleasant thing to her while she had the scissors in her hand, and he would leave the chair as bald as an egg.

Matt must have read her mind. Even as he seated himself, and suffered her to secure a cloth around his neck to catch the cut hairs, he pinned glinting blue eyes on her.

“One lock falls amiss, and I’ll see your hair shorn before morning,” he threatened under his breath.

“Don’t you trust me?” Caroline asked just as softly and snapped the scissors together in a way that might have passed as teasing.

Then all five remaining Mathiesons gathered round, open fascination in their eyes as they prepared to watch the shearing of the first, and most fearsome, sheep. Of necessity, all covert exchanges between Caroline and Matt ceased.

Picking up the comb, she walked around behind him. For a moment she hesitated, studying the wealth of thick black hair. His shoulders and back dwarfed the narrow-back chair, his long legs were stretched out in front of him, and his arms were crossed almost menacingly over his chest. His jaw was set, his eyes stared straight ahead. Above the pinned cloth, his neck was bronzed and strong-looking. Staring at the vulnerable nape, where a myriad of blue-black curls nestled in almost feminine beauty, Caroline felt a queer little stirring deep inside her. For no more than an instant, the impulse came to her to run her finger along that bared, vulnerable neck. The image this conjured up made her stiffen. She almost dropped the comb and turned away. Then, supremely conscious of her interested audience, she took a firm grip on her emotions, along with a deep breath, and ran the comb through Matt’s hair.

Each curl and wave sprang immediately back into place, leaving no mark of the comb’s passing. Over his forehead and around his ears and neck were the spots that needed trimming. Abandoning the comb, which
was doing no good at all, Caroline cautiously ran her fingers through the curly mass. His scalp felt warm beneath her touch. The strands of his hair were cool and crisp as she drew them away from his head.

Snip
. She trimmed the ends so that they were just longer than his right ear.
Snip
. She did the same for his left. Then she stood behind him again, trying to pretend that he was no older, no more threatening to her peace of mind, than Davey. She threaded her fingers through the curls at his nape. Still she could not quite control the unsteadiness of her hands as she stretched the hair away from his scalp.

Strangely she felt no repulsion. Whether it was because she knew he was no threat to her, with or without their interested audience, or because she so thoroughly controlled the situation, she didn’t know. But he seemed to sense that something in her attitude toward him had changed as she cut his hair. When she came around to stand in front of him and trim the locks that fell over his forehead, he looked up to meet her eyes with a speculative look in his own.

“You next, Davey,” he said, breaking the spell along with their eye contact as his gaze found his son, who was watching wide-eyed along with the rest. Even before she had finished, Matt was rising from the chair, pulling the cloth from his shoulders and installing Davey where he had sat. Although Matt still had a few locks that needed trimming, Caroline made no protest. What had occurred—and had not occurred—inside her body when she had touched Matt needed some thinking on. What she did not need was to go on touching him.

With her mind on Matt, she smoothed her hands over Davey’s silky hair without thought, only to be rewarded by having him jerk his head away from her touch. The look he gave her over his shoulder was black with loathing and quickly recalled Caroline to herself. In a very businesslike fashion she cut his hair, trying not to feel hurt as he held himself stiffly erect beneath her ministrations. The instant she finished he jumped up with a sigh of relief and retreated to the opposite end of the room. Clearly winning the child over was not going to be easy. If anything, he seemed to dislike her more now than he had when she first arrived.

Robert was next, and she made short work of him and the others. In half an hour all were done, and Matt was ordering the boys off to bed. Sleepy-eyed but still resentful, Davey at first defied his father, refusing to budge from the corner where he was comfortably curled up. Fists on hips, Matt eyed his recalcitrant son, and Caroline winced as she considered the form his wrath might take. For a moment the two stared at each other while the issue trembled in the balance. Then Matt’s face abruptly softened. He swooped down on the boy, catching him up with his hands beneath the child’s armpits and tossing him high in the air before catching him again. Giggling as he wrapped his arms around his father’s neck and his legs around his waist, Davey made no further protest as he was borne off toward the stairs. John, trailing them, was smiling, and Caroline smiled too. The sheer coziness of the scene touched her heart. Watching them go, she admired her own handiwork on the three eye-catchingly
similar heads of black hair, and to her surprise she felt a totally unexpected tingle of pride in the sheer handsomeness of the man and his sons. Hastily she attributed the feeling to nothing more than satisfaction in a job well done and then shied away from examining her emotions altogether.

Caroline tidied the kitchen one last time, put more dough out to rise, and went upstairs herself. As no one had told her otherwise, she supposed she would once again be sleeping in Matt’s bed.

But not alone. Caroline made that discovery as she climbed between the sheets in the dark. Her toes touched something—and it moved! Something alive was under there! Something cold and faintly damp and … surely it wasn’t a snake!

Caroline was out of that bed before the thought was half-formed. Instinct alone held back a scream—along with, perhaps, the memory of how scornfully her screams had been received earlier in the day. Shuddering, she struck flint to steel and lighted the bedside candle. Turning back to the bed, prepared to jump out of the way as fast as could be if whatever was under there warranted it, she flung back the bedcoverings.

From the very end of the bed, where her feet had been, a frog jumped to the center of the mattress.

For a moment Caroline stared at it. Frogs held no particular horrors for her—but how on earth had such a thing gotten into her bed? She remembered Davey and his newly captured pet.

Rivet!
The frog croaked and jumped again, this time landing at the very edge of the mattress. One more leap and it would be on the floor.

Catching up the pitcher that stood on the bedside table, Caroline used it to scoop up the frog. The pitcher would keep it safely imprisoned for the night—and in the morning she knew just what she would do with it.

Return it to its rightful owner, of course. Because, if her suspicions were correct, and they almost certainly were, the frog was a gift from Davey, designed to send her shrieking from the house, never to return. He must be listening hard at that very moment, waiting for her earsplitting scream.

A smile sneaked around her lips. The child would have a long, tiring wait, with a surprise at the end of it.

Feeling better than she would have imagined she could twenty-four hours before, Caroline climbed back into bed. This time her head barely touched the pillow before she was asleep.

12

C
aroline waited for her opportunity, then dropped the frog in Davey’s lap the next morning with no one the wiser. The men were seated around the table, wolfing down their breakfast as was their wont. Only Davey had seemed somewhat off his feed. He had been eyeing her a trifle nervously ever since he came downstairs and discovered her, deliberately serene, stirring the porridge as though she had not a care in the world. She greeted him with no sign of anything wrong, and it was then that he started looking perturbed. Now, as the men rose from the table and John shoveled in the last bite of porridge before doing likewise, Davey looked very worried indeed. It was at that moment that Caroline chose to return the frog.

Rivet!
The creature jumped and croaked, but Davey’s hand was already cupping it, pinning it to his knee, and in the general hubbub the sound went unnoticed.

Davey cast her a guilty look. Caroline bent over him and whispered in his ear.

“If you want to keep him, you’d best not let him come in the house again. Millicent has quite an appetite for frogs, I’m sorry to say.”

At that Davey looked appalled and glanced swiftly
down at his cupped hand. Caroline, keeping her expression carefully bland, straightened—and found Matt looking at her, a frown darkening his brow and his eyes keen on her face.

“Is aught amiss?” he asked, as his glance traveled between Caroline and his younger son. Davey looked guiltier than ever, but his hand stayed firm over the frog.

“Not a thing in the world,” Caroline answered cheerfully. She could have sworn that the glance Davey shot her was almost grateful as he slid off the bench.

“Come on, John, we don’t want to be late for school,” he reminded his brother hurriedly. The hand holding the frog slid into his pocket and he snatched up his hornbook. Then he was out the door with his brother, complaining of his haste, at his heels.

“Nothing, eh?” Matt’s gaze returned from following his sons to fix on her again, sharply. Caroline shook her head. Matt, though still frowning suspiciously, let the matter pass.

“We’ll be in the south field again” was the only other thing he said as he and the others were leaving. Caroline straightened from where she was scrubbing the table to frown at him, not immediately comprehending.

“When time comes for lunch,” he clarified, then added, as he took himself off, “and this time, try to keep it away from the dog.”

She was expected to bring them lunch again! Remembering yesterday’s misadventure, and considering how tired she was already and how much work
awaited her besides preparing and delivering the meal, Caroline groaned. But the men were gone, and there was no one save Millicent to hear her. So she poured the cat a saucer of milk, fixed herself the leavings of the porridge, and looked on the bright side: at least she had given Davey something to think about. He might respect her after this, even if the rest of them did not.

The meal she prepared was much the same as yesterday’s, except that she substituted venison for the ham. When the time came to deliver it, she started out again along the stream just as she had the day before. But this time her step was quicker, and she walked on the side of the stream away from the forest, though that meant that she had to ford the creek in its shallowest spot. The water was cold, the day windy, and she was soon thoroughly chilled. Thus as she hurried along, bucket and jug weighing her down, her feet were wet and she was not in a very good humor. She was also scared. For the life of her, she could not help casting wary glances at the forest. What would she do if the Indian reappeared? The very thought gave her the shivers, and she knew, with the best will in the world, that she would not be able to repress a scream.