Vows (7 page)

 
"I hadn't noticed," Emily replied sourly, spreading the thick yellow paste on a white rag.

 
"Hadn't noticed!" Tarsy shrieked, throwing herself against the workbench at Emily's elbow, bending at the waist to gush in Emily's face. "Hadn't noticed those … those bulging arms! And that face! And those eyes! Emily, my
grandmother
would have noticed, and she's got cataracts. Mercy sakes, those lashes … those limpid pools … those drooping lids … why, when he looked at me I went absolutely limp." Tarsy affected a swoon, falling forward across the workbench like a dying ballerina, overturning a bottle of carbolic acid with an outflung hand.

 
"Tarsy, would you mind going limp somewhere else?" Emily righted the bottle. "And how could you notice all that when you only passed him on the street?"

 
"A girl's
got
to notice things like that if she doesn't want to live her life as an old maid. Honestly, Emily, don't tell me you didn't notice how good-looking he is."

 
Emily picked up the poultice and headed for the main part of the barn with Tarsy at her heels, still rhapsodizing.

 
"I'll bet he's got fifty eyelashes for every one of Jerome's. And when he smiles he gets a dimple in his left cheek. And his lips—oh, Emily." Tarsy appeared about to be laid low by another near-collapse, then popped out of it to demand, "Tell me everything you know about him. Everything! Which horse is his? What's he doing here? Where did he come from? Is he staying?" Tarsy folded her hands along her chest, squeezed her eyelids closed, and lifted her face. "Oh, please. God, let him stay!"

 
Entering Sergeant's stall, Emily said, "You're wasting your time, Tarsy. He's engaged."

 
"Engaged!" Tarsy wailed. "Are you sure?"

 
Squatting to strap the poultice to Sergeant's foot, Emily added, "He mentioned a fiancée."

 
"Oh, horse puckey!" the blonde pouted, stamping her foot. "Now I
will
end up an old maid!"

 
Though Tarsy was Emily's best friend, there were times when Emily thought the girl hadn't a brain in her head. She was an inveterate flirt, constantly vocalizing her fear of being an old maid when there was about as little chance of that happening as of Sergeant strapping this poultice on himself. But Tarsy was fond of agonizing over the possibility, sitting on Emily's porch swing or in her bedroom, or coming here to the livery stable and flinging her body about as if in near-despair, waxing melodramatic about how lonely life would be at fifty when she was a childless, gray-haired spinster living alone sewing gloves. It wasn't Tarsy's fault she was born needing constant compliments in order to be happy. Or that she'd been endowed with a bent toward melodrama. Emily found both traits amusing and irritating, by turns, especially in light of Tarsy's ability to charm men. For Tarsy, too, had fifty eyelashes for every one of Jerome Berryman's, and poor Jerome was smitten with each one of hers, as were several other local swains. She had reams of bouncing blond hair, a beautiful heart-shaped face high-lighted by her abundantly fringed brown eyes, tiny bones, and a nearly nonexistent waist that drew second glances like a field of blooming buckwheat draws honeybees.

 
But, as always, she wanted one more bee.

 
"Emily, tell me about him anyway,
pleeze
."

 
"I don't know much except that he's staying and I'm not too happy about it. He's already seen Loucks about buying property and he intends to build a livery stable and go into competition with Papa."

 
Tarsy came out of her self-absorption long enough to cover her lips in dismay. "Oh, dear."

 
"Yes. Oh, dear."

 
"Whatever is your papa going to do?"

 
"What can we do? It's a free country, he says."

 
"You mean he isn't upset?"

 
"I'm the one who's upset!" Emily finished doctoring Sergeant, stood, and wiped her hands agitatedly. "Papa's got enough to worry about with Mama getting worse. And now this." She related what had transpired the previous day, ending, "So if you hear where he intends to put up his livery stable, I'd appreciate your letting us know."

 
But before the day was out Emily learned for herself. She was in the office studying, sitting Indian-fashion on the cot with her shoulders curled against the wall, one hand on the sleeping cat and a book in her lap, when Jeffcoat himself appeared in the doorway.

 
She glanced up and her eyes iced over.

 
"Oh, it's you."

 
"Good afternoon, Miss Walcott." He surveyed her unladylike pose while she defiantly refused to alter it on his behalf. A grin unbalanced his mouth as he tipped his hat, and she cursed Tarsy for being right: he did have a dimple in his left cheek and his eyelashes were devilishly thick and long, and he had a disarmingly attractive mouth. And dressed in the same shirt with the missing sleeves, his bulging biceps were as conspicuous as the spine of the Big Horns. But she sensed a cockiness in his unconventional attire, a flaunting of masculinity to which a gentleman would not stoop: his tall black boots led to high-waisted black britches with bright red suspenders that looked quite superfluous on pants that tight. But above all he flaunted those muscular arms, framed by the threads of blue chambray where the sleeve had been chewed off at the armhole. Oh, and didn't he know how to pose the whole collection to best advantage, standing with feet wide-spread, hands hooked at his waist, as if to say, take a look, lady.

 
"What do you want?" she demanded rudely.

 
"My horses. I'll need them for a few hours."

 
Emily flopped her book facedown, sending the cat bounding away. She bounced off the cot and strode for the door at full steam, refusing to excuse herself as she forced Jeffcoat to jump back or be flattened. He jumped. Then whistled as if singed and ambled farther into the empty office to glance amusedly at the cover of her book.
The Science of Veterinary Medicine
by R. C. Barnum. The amusement left his face, replaced by interest as he turned the volume over, cocked his head, and perused the header on the open page: "Diseases of the Generative Organs of Both the Horse and Mare." His eyes wandered across the cot, across the rag rug, which still held a depression from her rump, to a sheaf of papers that had been at her knee. With a single finger he pivoted them and saw what appeared to be a prepared quiz. He read:
What is the most common cause of barrenness in mares and what is its treatment?

 
Beneath it she had filled in the answer:
An acid secretion of the genital organs or a retention of the afterbirth. The most common treatment is with yeast as follows: Mix 2 heaping tsp. Of yeast into a pint of boiled water, keep warm for 5 or 6 hours. Flush affected parts first with warm water, then inject with yeast. Animal should be mated from 2-6 hours after treatment.

 
His eyebrows rose. So the little smart-mouth knew her stuff!

 
A hand reached around and snatched the papers from under his nose. "This is a private office!"

 
He neither flinched nor blustered but turned loosely to watch her bury the papers beneath a ledger on the littered desk. She was dressed once again in britches and the wool cap, but this time the leather apron was absent and he saw that he'd been mistaken; she did have breasts after all, plum sized and minimized by a perfectly atrocious open-collared boy's shirt the color of horse dung. He made sure his survey of her breasts was completed before she whipped around to confront him with her fists akimbo.

 
"You're a nosy, rude man, Mr. Jeffcoat!"

 
"And your parents could have taught you a few manners. Miss Walcott."

 
"I don't appreciate people sticking their noses into my personal business, and you've done it twice now! I'll thank you not to do it again!"

 
For a moment he considered making some comment on her mode of dress, compliment her on how the hue of the shirt did wonders for her complexion, just to nettle her. Actually, she looked quite fetching with her feet spraddled, her fists bunched, and her blue eyes bright and angry. It was a curiosity to find a woman so feisty and outspoken in an age when the ideal female was purported to be one of dulcet voice and retiring comportment. She possessed neither, and it fascinated him. But in the end Jeffcoat decided he might need the use of her veterinary medicine book sometime, so he decided to soothe the waters.

 
"I'm sorry, Miss Walcott."

 
"If you want your horses, follow me. I don't see any reason why I should get them both out while you dally in here reading other people's mail." She strode for the door, calling back, "What do you want them hitched to, your own wagon?"

 
"Are all the women in this town as friendly as you?" he called, following.

 
"I said what do you want them hitched to?"

 
"Nothing. Just harness 'em and I'll drive 'em out."

 
She returned, hands on hips, to advise him with an air of long-suffering, "I don't
just harness
them, you help me."

 
"So what am I paying you for?"

 
"You want your horses or not, Jeffcoat?"

 
Taking a lead rope, she tossed him another, pushed aside a pole barrier to a stall, and nodded toward an adjacent one. "Liza's in there. Get her."

 
Bossy young thing, he thought, grabbing the rope on the fly. But before he could say so she disappeared and he dropped the pole from Liza's stall and stepped inside. "Hiya, girl." He gave Liza a critical look-over, rubbing her withers and shoulders. She'd been brushed down as ordered; her hide was smooth and flat. Miss Britches might have the tongue of an adder but she knew how to put away a horse.

 
"Liza looks good," he offered, backing the horse into the corridor where Emily was already waiting with Rex. "I can tell you spent plenty of time brushing her."

 
For his efforts he received a scowl that said clearly, only an idiot abuses good horseflesh. With the snap lines secured, she turned away haughtily, leading the way to the rear of the barn where carriages and wagons were stored. Inside a separate tack room the equipage hung on wooden pegs. They took his gear down together—she sullen, he amused—and carried it to the main aisle where they began in silence to harness Rex and Liza. When the job was done, she headed for the office, offering not a word of farewell.

 
"I'll have them back tonight," he called, "but you can charge me for the full day."

 
"You can bet your shabby shirt I will!" she returned without a backward glance, and disappeared into her lair.

 
He glanced down at his bare arms, grinned, and thought, all right, so we're even, young fellow.

 
Inside the office, sitting cross-legged again with the book on her lap, Emily found her concentration shattered. Her stomach was jumping and her tongue ached from being pressed so tensely to the roof of her mouth. Damn his insufferable hide! When she tried to read, his criticism seemed to superimpose itself upon the words in the book. Infernal, distasteful man! She heard him cluck to the team, heard their hooves clop across the hard dirt floor and move up the street. When the sound disappeared she sat with her head against the wall and her eyes closed, agitated as no man had managed to make her before. Where was he taking the horses without the wagon? And how dare he criticize her papa, whom he didn't even know! His own manners left plenty to be desired!

 
Twenty minutes later she'd managed to refocus her attentions on her studies when a screech distracted her. She cocked her head and listened—it sounded like metal on stones.
Metal on stones?
Suspicion dawned and she tore outside, halted at the wide double doors, and gaped at the jarring sight of Jeffcoat leveling a lot not a hundred feet down the street on the opposite side. He had rented Loucks's steel grader, a monstrous affair painted parsley green that kept the town's streets bladed during summer and plowed in winter, and made Loucks some fairly decent rental money with each lot he sold. The implement had a long-nosed frame upon which the metal blade was tilted by a pair of upright wheels and attached cables. Jeffcoat stood between the wheels on a railed metal platform driving his team like some misplaced Roman gladiator.

 
Emily was marching toward him the moment her outrage blossomed.

 
"Just what do you think you're doing, Jeffcoat!" she bellowed, approaching him as the rig moved away from her, rolling dirt to one side.

 
He glanced over his shoulder and smiled, but kept the team moving. "Leveling my land, Miss Walcott!"

 
"In a pig's eye!" She stomped along off his right flank while he rode three feet above her.

 
"No, in J. D. Loucks's grader!"

 
It was a toss-up who screeched louder, the rocks or Emily. "How dare you pick this spot right on top of my father's!"