Vows (48 page)

 
Edwin dropped a hand to Fannie's pale hair and idly caressed it. For the space of two heartbeats her hands stopped their task, then sensibly continued.

 
"Am I expected to wait a whole year before making you my wife?"

 
"I believe so."

 
"I'll never make it, Fannie."

 
She drew an unsteady breath and said what had been on her mind for four weeks. "Which is why I feel it would be best if I leave soon."

 
He answered by closing his hand around her neck possessively, kneading it, sending shivers down her spine.

 
"It doesn't look good, Edwin, my staying on."

 
"Since when have you been concerned about how things look, you who ride bicycles and wear knickerbockers?"

 
"If it were only for myself I wouldn't be concerned, but you have two children. We must consider them."

 
"You think they'd be happier if you leave?"

 
She spun on her knees, knocking his hand aside, and lifted her face in appeal. "You're intentionally distorting my meaning."

 
"If you think I'm going to let you go, you're crazy, Fannie," he warned vehemently.

 
"And if you think I'm going to allow any improprieties between us as long as I'm single and living in your house with your children, you're crazy, too!"

 
"I already have Emily's approval to marry you, and I'm sure Frankie won't mind a bit. You've been as good a mother to him as his own was. Maybe better."

 
"This is not the time or the place, Edwin."

 
"I only want to know how long I have to wait."

 
"A year is customary."

 
"A year!" He snorted. "Christ."

 
She considered him with gentle reproof in her gaze. "Edwin, I'm only now packing up Joey's clothes. And I didn't want to repeat the graceless old saying about not letting the body cool, but perhaps you need to hear it today."

 
He stared at her for five tense seconds, then spun about and clumped from the room with frustration in every footstep.

 
Fannie was right, of course, but her clinging to gentilities did little to relieve the overburdening sexual suppression Edwin practiced in the days that followed. He gave up the habit of going home for coffee, making sure he was there only when one of the children was also present. He carefully guarded his watchfulness, and kept a proper distance, and to his immense relief Fannie mentioned no more about leaving.

* * *

Meanwhile, Emily, too, suppressed her need to see Tom Jeffcoat until the proper time could come for her to make the break with Charles. She had chosen not to tell her family until after the deed was done, so when they asked what had happened to Charles lately, she said he was busy in the evening building furniture on speculation, stockpiling it for sale to the preempters who'd begin rolling through again in the spring.

 
During the first two weeks following the funeral she saw Tom only from a distance, across the length of the block dividing their livery stables. The first time they stood and stared. The second time he raised a hand in silent hello and she raised hers back, then they stared again, lovelorn, bound by the same strict rules that held Fannie and Edwin apart.

 
Not until a full month after the funeral did they bump into each other accidentally. It happened as Emily left Loucks's store with a basket of drygoods she'd picked up for Fanny. Tom was coming in just as she was going out, and they nearly ran each other down on the boardwalk.

 
He steadied her by both arms—a lingering excuse to touch—while their blood rushed and they stared into one another's eyes with thwarted longing seeming to flush their entire bodies.

 
Finally releasing her arms, Tom touched his hat brim. "Miss Walcott."

 
How obvious. He had not called her Miss Walcott since the first week he'd come to town.

 
"Hello, Tom."

 
"How are you?"

 
"Better. Everyone's adjusting at home."

 
His Adam's apple bobbed like a fishing cork and his voice dropped to a whisper. "Emily … oh, God … I wish I were." He sounded miserable.

 
"Is something wrong?"

 
"Wrong?" He glanced furtively up and down the boardwalk. Though it was empty, he made fists to keep from touching her. "That was a hell of a thing you said to me the day of the funeral. You can't just say a thing like that and walk away."

 
She felt suddenly buoyed and optimistic, realizing he'd felt as lonely and denied as she. "You did the same thing to me one day on the street. Remember?"

 
They both remembered, and smiled and basked in each other while they could.

 
"Charles tells me you haven't been seeing him much."

 
"I asked him for some time to myself. I've been trying to ease away from him."

 
"I want to see you. How long do I have to wait?"

 
"It's only been a month."

 
"I'm losing my mind."

 
"So am I."

 
"Emily, if I—"

 
"Howdy!" Old Abner Winstad came out of the store just then, stepping between the two without bothering to apologize for interrupting.

 
"Hello, Mr. Winstad," Emily said.

 
"Well, give your family my best," Tom improvised, tipping his hat to her before adding, "How're you, Mr. Winstad?"

 
"Well, to tell the truth, sonny, my lumbago's been acting up lately and I went to see Doc Steele, but I swear that man's got no more compassion than a—"

 
Abner found himself talking to thin air as Tom headed down the boardwalk, forgetting whatever it was he'd been heading into Loucks's Store for.

 
Abner scowled after him and groused, "Young whippersnappers … got no respect for their elders anymore."

* * *

Another two weeks went by during which Emily saw little more than a glimpse of Tom down the street. It was late February and dreary outside, and the snow had turned dirty, and she missed Tom so much she could scarcely bear it. She had decided she'd give herself two more days, and if she hadn't run into him she was going to make a clandestine late-night trip to his house, and the devil pay the consequences!

 
Who made up these damned rules of mourning anyway?

 
She applied more oil to her rag and began working it into another piece of harness while Edwin crouched beneath Pinky. He let the forefoot clack to the floor and straightened, announcing, "Pinky's thrown a shoe. Will you take her across the street?"

 
Emily's heart suddenly burst into quick-time, and she stared at her father's back. Did he know? Or didn't he? Was he intentionally giving them time alone or didn't he realize he'd just answered her prayers? She stared at his crossed suspenders and squelched the urge to press her cheek to his back, slip her arms around his trunk, and cry, "Oh, thank you, Papa, thank you."

 
Instead, she dropped her oiling rag, wiped her palms on her thighs and replied tepidly, "I suppose."

 
Turn around, Papa, so I can see your face.
But he left Pinky tied in the aisle and moved off toward the next stall without giving his daughter a clue about his suspicions or lack of them.

 
With her heart racing, Emily plucked an ancient, misshapen wool jacket off a peg and gratefully led Pinky away. Out on the street, walking toward Tom's stable, she became flustered by an uncharacteristic rash of feminine concerns.

 
I - forgot - to - check - my - hair - I - wish - I - were - wearing - a - dress - I - probably - smell - like - harness - oil!

 
But she'd run from their own barn thinking of only one thing: getting to Tom Jeffcoat without wasting a solitary second, relieving this immense, insoluble lump of longing that she had carried in her chest day and night since the last time she'd been in his arms.

 
She led Pinky into Tom's livery stable through the "weather door," a smaller hinged access set within the great rolling door. Inside, she heard his voice and stood listening, entranced by each inflection and tone merely because it came from him. Little matter that he spoke in the distance, to a stranger, about fire insurance. The voice with its own distinctive lilt and lyricism was his, unlike any other, to be savored just as she savored each glimpse of him, each precious stole touch.

 
She closed the weather door and waited with anticipation pushing against her throat. He appeared in the office doorway and she experienced the giddy joy of watching pleasant surprise flatten his face and color his cheeks.

 
"Emily … hello!"

 
"Pinky needs a reshoe.
Papa sent me."
She saw him bank his urge to come to her, saw him tense with impatience over the unconcluded business still waiting in his office. "Take her down to the other end. I'll be there in a minute."

 
She felt as if she had stepped into someone else's body, for the sensations aroused by him were foreign to her. There was impatience, welling high, counteracted by as great a sense of unrush now that she was here in this realm, where everything around her was his, had been built and touched and tended by him.
Take your time coming back to me. Let me bask in the knowledge that you will. Let me steep in this place that is yours, where you have slept and labored and thought of me.

 
She walked Pinky to the smithy at the far end of the barn, tethered her outside the door, then wandered inside where it was warm and smelled of hot metal and charcoal and—was she only imagining it?—the sweat of Tom Jeffcoat. She unbuttoned her heavy jacket and stuffed her gloves into the pockets, wandered past his tool table, touched the worn, smooth handles of hammers that had collected the oils from his hands and maybe those from his father's and grandfather's hands as well. Wood … only wood … but precious and coveted for having been closer to him than she. She stroked the anvil, scarred at the blunt end and worn brilliant as a silver bullet at its point; beside it he had stood as a boy, watching his grandfather at work. Upon it he had learned as a man. Steel … only steel … but the anvil seemed as much a part of him as his own muscle and bone.

 
Pinky nickered at being left on a short line and Emily sauntered back to her, glancing down the corridor to where Tom and the salesman now stood near the weather door, exchanging final comments.

 
"Maybe in the spring then, Mr. Barstow, after the first cattle drive comes through and the homesteaders start showing up again."

 
"Very good, Mr. Jeffcoat, I'll pay you a call then. In the meantime, if you want to reach me you can write to the address I gave you in Cheyenne." The two men shook hands. "You've got a mighty nice setup here. Well, I'd better let you get back to your customer."

 
"Appreciate your stopping, Mr. Barstow." Tom opened the door and saw the man out.

 
When the door closed he turned to find Emily watching him from the opposite end of the corridor. For moments neither of them moved, but stood transfixed by one another, marking time to the beat of their own leaping hearts, experiencing the same ebb and rush of protracted yearning that she had felt earlier. He started moving toward her, slowly at first … and disciplined. But he hadn't taken four steps before she was moving, too, with much less discipline than he, striding long and purposeful.

 
Then they were running.

 
Then kissing, wrapped together openmouthed and urgent after weeks of deprivation, feeling one agony end while another began. They kissed as if starved—deep, engulfing, whole-mouthed kisses that knew no limit of possession.

 
Tearing his mouth from hers Tom demanded breathlessly, "Tell me now … tell me again."

 
"I love you."

 
He held her head, smattered her with hard, impatient, celebratory kisses. "You really do. Oh, Emily, you really do!" He clutched her possessively, swiveling them both in a circle, dropping his head over her shoulder. "I missed you. I love you…" And realizing his tardiness in saying so, chastised himself, "Oh, damn me, I should have said that first.
I love
you.
It's been the longest six weeks of my life." Again they kissed, futilely trying to make up for lost time—wet, wide kisses during which they caressed each other's backs, ribs, waists, shoulders.

 
"Just stand still for a minute," he breathed, clasping her near, "…and let me feel you … just feel you."