Weeping Angel (24 page)

Amelia made no remark; she picked up on Emmaline's meaning, but wasn't clear how to translate how washing underwear could give her the upper hand.

“If Frank Brody were the marrying type—which he's not—
yet
,” Emmaline stated, “I'd be the one he'd choose.”

“Shall I offer my congratulations?”

“In due time.”

Amelia maintained an air of calm self-confidence, even though scalding fury was blistering her nerves. “I'm certain you'll be very happy tied down to a man like Frank. Myself, I'm doing just fine being on my own. I intend to keep my living arrangements as they are.”

“And a very wise choice. Why, everyone in town knows you'll never get married—even if you wanted to. Not after the shameful behavior you displayed toward that book and Bible salesman from California two years ago.”

Amelia felt the sting of Emmaline's unveiled barb pierce through her armor.

“Besides,” Emmaline went on, “you're too old to get married to someone as virile as Frank anyway. You'd do better with an elderly gentleman. A widower with a passel of grandchildren—your own age.”

Emmaline finally managed to shatter Amelia's complacency. “If you'll excuse me,” Amelia mumbled, needing to get away from the woman before she forgot she was a lady.

Amelia made her retreat with as much decorum as she could salvage. How dare Emmaline take notice of her unmarried state. Why, the woman was near her own age and not married either. Emmaline Shelby had never been outright mean to her before. They'd
met on the street with a passing “How do you do?” or in the Wells Fargo picking up their mail, but they'd always had a civil, social word for one another.

Emmaline's attack had stirred bitter jealousy in Amelia. She knew she shouldn't feel that way, but she did. Emmaline had strongly hinted she was doing more than just washing Frank's dirty clothes. Had Frank kissed her, too? Given her cattails? Put his hands in her unbound hair?

Amelia suddenly felt sick at heart.

“Amelia, dear! Over here!” Mrs. Beamguard called with a wave. As she advanced on Dorothea, Amelia took a quick inventory of the other women in the group. Mrs. Spivey, Mrs. Applegate, and Mrs. Reed. She would have liked to speak with Dorothea alone, but it might work to her advantage if she had the endorsement of the others.

“Amelia, dear,” Mrs. Beamguard cried, “we were just speaking about you! We've had the most wonderful idea. Let me tell you every sumptuous detail!”

Amelia listened, nodding when appropriate. But all the while she was thinking, her troubles were worsening by the minute.

*  *  *

Frank wouldn't have gone over to Amelia's house on Monday afternoon if Coney Island hadn't told him she let a frog loose in the Christ Redeemer on Sunday. He doubted her actions had been planned and wondered why she'd brought the frog to the church in the first place. For some reason, he figured it had something to do with him. And he wanted to find out what.

As he walked across town, he lost himself in the reverie of a striking bloomer girl he'd met in Boise last night at the Can-Can Revue. She'd been corsetless and wearing bloomers instead of chaste pantaloons and layers of petticoats. With a cigarette between her blushing red lips, a shot glass of bourbon in her hand,
she'd dealt him cards most of the night; then, later, when she'd offered to play a one-on-one game of her own with him, he'd been too drunk to comply.

Maybe he'd gotten hammered on purpose. So he could have the excuse he couldn't do it when all along he knew there was no reason he shouldn't. But, hell, that didn't make any sense. He didn't owe anyone in Weeping Angel anything. He was a free man. He did as he wanted, when he wanted.

Why, then, was he feeling guilty as sin?

He'd run into Emmaline in Teats's livery yesterday morning when he was renting a horse. She'd gone on, in as subtle a way as possible, about all the events that would take place at the picnic coming up. He'd shrugged off her hints as best as he could, seeing he'd already told her no dice, then rode out of town.

In hindsight, it wasn't Emmaline's pouting expression bringing out his guilt. It was because he'd kissed Amelia. He'd looked back to that night more than once while fighting off his attraction toward her. It had been harder than he'd thought to leave her porch that evening.

She'd felt so good in his arms, he'd been more than a little shaken up. She was certainly not the cool, disciplined woman she appeared to be on the surface. No, Amelia Marshall had the potential to be a real firecracker.

On the ride home from Boise, with his head splitting from a hangover, she was all he could think about. Her smile. The sweet perfume on her skin. That glorious hair of hers. He'd almost gone straight over to her house when he'd returned to Weeping Angel but hadn't because he didn't know what to say to her. Damn, he'd really messed up with that frog. But that wasn't really his fault, and he didn't know how to explain it without looking like a bigger idiot.

He'd been searching for an excuse to see her, and
Coney Island's description of what happened in the church was a good enough reason to Frank.

He let himself through the picket gate at Amelia's house. The front lawn looked like hell. The grass was chewed up in patches that would take more than a week to grow out. He should have paid Coney Island to do the yard for her. Stubborn as she was, she'd clip her toes under that mower before she gave in and let him pay for the job to be done.

Taking the porch steps, Frank rang the bell. When no one answered, he decided to investigate the backyard. He found the Acme mower in the side yard butted up against a half-trimmed hedge of boxwood, where leaves had been defoliated by a pair of hedge shears that had been pitched in the dirt, their blades obliterated from his view underneath the shrub.

Standing there, he removed his hat, absently ran the back of his hand across his brow to collect the sweat, then fit his panama over his forehead. Maybe she was sitting on the lawn furniture drinking something cold.

He'd just taken a step when he heard the sobs. A kind of instinct for trouble kicked in, and he ran toward the pitiful wails coming from deep in the rear of the yard. Sprinting through the calf-high grass, he saw her sitting by the edge of her thriving garden. Her shoulders shook and she was clutching her stomach, rocking back and forth.

“Jesus.” The word whooshed through him before he realized he'd even called for higher help. She must have accidentally cut herself with the shears was all he could think of. “Jesus,” he said again, this time knowing full well who he was calling upon.

Reaching Amelia's side, Frank dropped to his knees and tried to pry her hands from her abdomen to assess her injury.

She gazed at him through tear-swollen eyes, not allowing him to examine her; her muscles were
locked, and he couldn't budge her arms. Her sudden burst of strength amazed him, and he tried to compose her with his voice. “Sweetheart, let me see what you've done to yourself.”

“I . . . I . . . I . . . I . . .” She tried to speak but was so upset, she seemed on the verge of hyperventilating.

“Calm down. Take a deep breath,” he ordered, gripping her shoulders with his fingers. “That's a girl. Slow and easy.”

“I . . . I . . .” A sob choked her throat, then in a hysterical voice she blurted,
“I've killed it!”

“Killed what, honey?”

“Fffffffffffffffff . . .” Her bosom rose and fell with so much distress, he felt sick for her. “Ffffffffff . . .”

“What?”

“Frog!” she sobbed. “I've killed the frog.” A torrent of fresh tears streamed down her blotched cheeks. “I didn't mean to. I—I didn't hate it. Honest! I should have”—her breath hitched in her chest—“should have let it go. I wanted to give it back to you yesterday, but . . . oh . . . the poor thing.” Then looking at him through long wet lashes, she suddenly punched him in the upper arm. “Why did you have to go to Boise? Frog would have been alive and eating . . . eating . . . eating flies in the pond . . . instead . . . instead . . . instead of being . . . d-d-d-dead.”

Then she cried even harder, the pain in her voice slicing him in two. Damn, she was on the worst crying jag he'd ever seen. Even the bed wetters in the home hadn't cried this hard after a bare-butt whipping.

The fingers in her left hand were closed in a soft fist. Call it a hunch, but Frank figured he could lay a sure bet on what she held.

Frank was at a loss over what to do, considering why she was lamenting. He'd never dealt with an overwrought female before whose frantic raving was caused by a kicked-off leopard frog. He reached out
and awkwardly stroked her fist. “Why don't you let me take it for you, sweetheart?”

“No!” She clutched her fist to her breasts. “I'm going to bury it.”

She was more distraught than he thought. At the sight of her woebegone face, his thoughts fragmented as something clicked in his mind: He wanted to take care of her. “I'll bury it for you.”

She looked at him as if he were an angel. “You will?”

“Yeah.”

“All right.” She sniffed and slowly extended her hand, unfolding her fingers. “H-Here he is.” Seeing the limp, spotted green leaper in her dirty palm made Amelia weep anew. “M-M-Make a marker for him, too. There's wood by the shed.”

Frank nodded. “Do you have a cigar box I can put him in?”

Her shoulders trembled as she blew her nose into the lace-bordered handkerchief she'd plucked from her apron pocket. “I don't smoke.”

“I'll just put him in the dirt then.”

“No!” she protested, then bit her lip in thought. Gazing at the square of dainty white in her hand, she gave her hankie to Frank. “Put him in this.”

Frank took the soggy square of linen, laid the frog in the center, and began to fold up the scalloped corners.

“Wait!” she exclaimed. She leaned forward to snip a drooping peony with her fingertips, then rested the fluffy pink flower next to the frog. “This, too.”

Frank finished doubling the fabric. “Where do you want it buried?”

Amelia's brows knit together, then she stood. “Over here. By the corn where I won't accidentally dig him up.”

Frank followed her between furrows of carrots and tomatoes, past bush beans to a three-row block of six-foot-tall cornstalks. The brown silks brushed his
arms where his sleeves were rolled up; the air around him smelled sweet and rich with minerals.

As Amelia walked in front of him, the heavy ears and green spears cloaked them from the rest of the garden. She wasn't crying anymore, but every now and then, her shoulders quaked and he could hear her tear-spent sigh of exhaustion through the rustle of cornstalks. The pleats on the backside of her skirt sported a grass stain; the thick twist of wavy hair on top of her head was askew, and only one loop in the bow on her apron was knotted.

In short, Amelia Marshall wasn't herself.

He somehow doubted her accidentally killing the frog was the sole cause for the change in her behavior, and he guessed before he left, he'd find out why.

“Right here.” She pointed to the ground at the edge of the corn. “That's where I want him.”

“Is the shovel in the shed, too?”

“Yes.”

Frank obtained the appropriate tools for the job, put the sole of his boot on the edge of the shovel, and turned out a big scoopful of dirt without any effort. “I don't think I need to go too deep.” Crouching down on the balls of his feet, he picked up the handkerchief he'd set aside and placed it on the bottom of the hole. Just as he did, Amelia began to cry all over again. Fat tears splashed off her lashes, down her high cheekbones, and put wet spots on her green-and-white shirtwaist.

“I'll n-n-n-never forget how it looked in the b-b-b-bottom of the box.”

Frank bet it looked dead.

“The poor thing j-j-j-just laid there.” She hiccupped. “I poked a hole in the lid and kept the box on the porch so Frog could catch flies.” She glanced at him with eyes so sad, he wanted to wrap her in his arms and make her hurt go away. “Do . . . do . . . do you suppose he ate a p-p-p-poisoned fly?”

“Well, sweetheart . . . I don't think so.”

“Neither . . . neither . . . neither . . . do I.” She buried her face in her hands while he buried the frog. “I killed it,” she moaned through sobs.

He smoothed the dirt over with the palm of his hand, made a marker, and hammered the point into the ground. The deed done, he hoped she'd snap out of her wails of woe. She was melting him down faster than a candle, his body and soul aching for her. Instead of calming, she grew much worse, trembling so badly his heart went cold.

Rising, he walked to where she stood between the corn, took her in his arms, and held her so tightly she had to stop shaking. Her arms remained at her sides, and it felt as if he were hugging a post. “Dammit, Amelia, you're scaring me. Do you need me to get the doc?”

“N-N-No.”

“Then why won't you stop crying?”

“I can't h-h-h-help myself.”

Frank felt the white-dotted muslin of his shirt dampen over his collarbone from her tears. He splayed his fingers and ran them up and down her spine in a soothing motion. “Hold on to me,” he whispered in her ear, wisps of her hair tickling his lips. After a moment, she did as he asked, but her wrists slumped indifferently over his shoulders.

Massaging the heel of his thumb at the nape of her neck, he asked, “Amelia, are you in some kind of trouble?”

“No.”

“Do you need money? I could lend you—”

“No, I don't need money, and I wish you'd stop asking me if I do!”

Drawing her slightly away from him so he could look into her brown eyes brimming with tears, he murmured, “Then what's wrong? Sweetheart, is it your monthly time?”