Summer Lightning (16 page)

Jeff ran an unsteady hand through his hair. She had much more to offer than she knew. The untapped passion of her virgin kiss dazzled him. A man could die of such a woman, die happily.

* * * *

Later Sam Dane showed some surprise when Edith asked him to let her drive along with him. “You were just there this morning. I wouldn’t have thought Richey had so much to show a lady that she’d head back so soon.”

“She’s a hard worker,” Jeff said from the next stall. He stood up and looked over the dividing planks.

Edith tried to pretend he wasn’t there, shirtless. She saw his bare shoulders when he stood. The telltale heat of a blush crept up her cheeks. She addressed herself solely to Sam.

“Your son has told me, Mr. Dane, that my coming here was your idea. I want to get my work done as quickly as I can.”

“All right. I can respect that. But I have to warn you . . . I’m just taking the wagon. It’s not very comfortable.”

“I’m sure it will be fine.”

“Okay, then. We’ll get going in a bit.”

‘Thank you. Uncle,” Edith said, catching a glimpse of one of the girls out of the corner of her eye.

“Oh, yeah. I almost forgot . . . ,” Sam said, then broke off to cough, covering his slip.

Little Maribel came around the corner of the barn, a long black cord trailing from her hand. When she saw the adults, she grinned, showing the gaps among her teeth. “Look what I got,” she said, twitching the cord so it made an interesting swirl in the dust behind her.

Crouching down to be on the child’s level, Edith said, “Whatever is that?”

Holding it up. Maribel said with glee, “It’s a snake!”

Edith was proud of herself for not shrieking in alarm. However, as she toppled over in terrified surprise, she could not claim to have much dignity left.

Both men raced over to pick her up, though Grouchy got there first. He poked his black, wet nose against her cheek. Jeff pushed the hound out of the way and helped her up. He studied her, while his father bent to brush off her skirts.

“It seems to be my day for falling down,” she said blithely.

Recovering, Edith pushed away from Jeff’s warm body, only to discover naked skin beneath her fingers where her hand rested on his chest. Soft, crisp hair curled around her fingers, and seemed to cling as she pulled back.

“Oh, dear,” she said, staring, fascinated by the fact that he wasn’t smooth. She never considered that the male of the species might have anything she did not have. The hair spread out across the strong, solid contours of his chest, glinting golden in the sunlight driving in through the barn doors. His arms, tanned brown, supple with muscles, seemed to ripple as he lifted his daughter up.

“Where’d you get the snake?” he asked.

Edith shuddered as the little girl lifted the limp reptile to show her father the sightless head. “I found it,” Maribel said proudly. “It’s all dead.”

“Hey!” Louise’s outraged voice sounded from the doorway. She ran in, shouting, “That’s mine. I found it first.”

Her bare feet sent up puffs of dust as she slid to a stop in front of her father and sister. “Give it back!”

“Won’t! I found it!”

“Didn’t! I did.”

“No, you were looking in the water. . . .”

“But I saw it first!”

Taking advantage of Maribel being still in her father’s arms, Louise grabbed the tail end of the snake and began to tug. Maribel gripped tighter, howling, “Mine, mine,
mine!”

“Hold it!” Jeff bellowed. Two pairs of identical eyes switched onto him. “Leave the poor critter in peace. Dad?”

Sam took the flaccid creature from the girls and measured him out. “He’s a good three feet, son. Wonder how he came to give up the ghost.”

“Feel like tanning him, Dad?”

“Sure thing. Make a fine pair of snakeskin belts for a couple of young hellions I know tell of.”

“Me, Grandpa!”

“No, me, Gran’pa!”

Jeff let the squirming Maribel slide down. “Unless you’d like it, Cousin Edith. Guests should have first choice.”

Edith swallowed. “No, thank you.”

“All yours, Dad.”

Casually, Jeff reached out to shrug on his chambray shirt. He left a few of the top buttons undone, and Edith saw the diamond glints of sweat beading the hollow of his throat. The gentle hands that had roamed her body now rested on his narrow hips. She realized the latent power of his form. His wide shoulders and flat stomach seemed to be the most perfect shape a man could take. For some reason, her lips were dry again.

The milk cow lowed. “Care to make another effort, Edith?” Jeff said, jerking his thumb toward the sound.

“No, thank you. I’d better prepare to go ... freshen up. Get the hay off my skirt. . . .”

She stumbled blindly toward the exit. All she could see was Jeff, as though he were imprinted on her inner eye. The sunlight dazzled her but didn’t conquer the afterimage Jeff had caused.

Troubled by her reactions, Edith sought the sanctuary of her room. Yet even here, thoughts of Jeff pursued her. She’d lain awake for an hour last night, acutely aware that this was his room. As soon as she began to feel sleepy, she’d roll into the hollow in the center of the mattress made by his body. The thing that frightened her most was that she fit so well into the space. It seemed far too intimate a thing for an unmarried lady to experience.

But Edith knew that the difficulties of the night before would pale before those that would keep her awake tonight. For now she knew what it was like to be held by him.

Peering into the mirror propped on top of the dressing table, she sought for an outward change in her appearance. She looked just the same—”like a pickled calf’s head,” she murmured.

The curl Jeff had adjusted had once more fallen into her eyes. She withdrew the long hatpin and laid her hat aside. Her long hair fell in untidy waves to the crest of her bosom. She attacked the waves with her brush.

Someone knocked at her door. It couldn’t be Jeff, she thought. He never waited after a knock to come in.

At Edith’s summons, Louise poked her head around the door. “Ooh, how pretty!” she said, and bounced into the room. Standing slightly behind Edith, she looked at her in the mirror. “Did your hair take a long time to grow like that?”

Edith couldn’t help being flattered by the child’s gaze of open admiration. “Not very long. It was cut very short a few years ago, when I had an illness.”

“Short as mine?”

“Much shorter.” She ran her hand around her head at the level of her earlobes. “Like that.”

“I don’t like mine this short,” Louise said. “All the other girls wear theirs in two long braids with big bows.”

“But yours is such a pretty color.”

Louise yanked on a piece of it. “It’s straight as a board, Grandpa says. Maribel’s is all curly.”

“Many babies have curly hair,” Edith said, aware that she was speaking out of a vast inexperience. “F m sure yours curled too when you were very young.”

Louise looked doubtful. Edith hurried on, “Besides, smooth, straight hair is all the fashion. Ladies even put special compounds on their hair to make it like yours.”

“Really?” The young girl stood on tiptoe to see herself more fully in the mirror. She ran her hand over the bright golden hair that hung on either side of her face. Licking her hand, she flattened the sharp fringe above her eyebrows.

Edith thought the hard angles of the little girl’s hair rather unbecoming to her pointed face. She would not say so, however, not for all the world. Even now, she could feel the unblunted pain of overhearing a visitor saying, “What an ill-looking child! Why ever did you pick
her?”
Though Aunt Edith had put the impertinent person in her place swiftly and succinctly, the shame of being thought unlovely remained with Edith to this day.

“You know,” she said, getting up. “I have a ribbon here somewhere that would be so nice on you.”

“Grandpa doesn’t hold with ribbons. He says they take too long to fool with ‘em. String is just as good.”

“Oh, but all little girls like a pretty ribbon to set them off.” She rummaged through the drawer she’d filled with her new undergarments. “Here,” she said, pulling the ribbon from the bodice of a nightdress. “Let me put it on you.”

Her hands shaking a little, for she’d never dressed anyone’s hair but her own, Edith tied the blue satin band around the child’s head, hiding the ends under her hair. The broad ribbon softened the severe hairstyle instantly.

“Look how blue your eyes are now, Louise.”

The girl bit her lip as she leaned forward into the mirror Edith held low for her. “It does look kinda . . . okay.” She turned her head from side to side, trying to see the whole effect. Her smile was wavering. “Do I look funny?”

Jeff’s warm voice flowed over them from the open door. “You look like an angel, honey.”

“Look, Daddy,” Louise said, racing across the plain pine floor. “Cousin Edith tied it for me, an’ everything!”

“Pretty as a picture,” he said, dropping a light kiss on the ribbon itself. His daughter glowed at the praise.

“Maribel’ll be sick as a dog when she sees. Huh, who needs any old snake?”

She ran down the hall, with Jeff watching to be sure she didn’t slip on the long rag runner. Then he turned back to Edith. “My daughter didn’t say it, so I will. Thank you, Edith.”

“It’s nothing. I now have so much that a ribbon won’t . . .”

“I’m not thanking you for the ribbon. It’s for caring enough to help her with it. Believe it or not, Louise doesn’t think she’s pretty.”

“No woman ever really believes that she is. Except if she’s vain, of course.” She’d picked up her hairbrush again but could not use it with him watching. That would be another step on the road to intimacy, and she must remember every moment that she’d be on her way at the end of the week.

“She’s beautiful to me. Both my daughters are beautiful. I try to tell them that but . . .” He shrugged.

Edith pictured his unclothed shoulders moving while the muscles in his back worked beneath his brown skin. Suddenly, her high collar was too tight.

Jeff leaned against the post at the end of the bed. “I guess it’s like I was telling you before. They need a woman in their lives. Now that you’ve met Miss Climson, Miss Albans and Mrs. Green, what do you think of them?”

“As I said, I really can’t judge so quickly. I’m used to letters. Meeting these people in reality, well, it puts my concentration off.”

“How?”

Edith made a futile gesture with the brush. “Two of them are going to be disappointed. They may get their feelings hurt. If it were just a matter of choosing among a stack of letters, then the personal element doesn’t enter into it. It’s just yes or no, this pile or that. I don’t get entangled.”

“Your emotions, you mean.”

“Yes. Now, I shall be imagining two of them hurt, and that makes me uncomfortable.”

“What about that couple you were telling me about? The girl who had to really like cows.”

“That was different. I knew as soon as I read Miss Fiske’s letter that she would be the perfect person for Mr. Hansen. There was no question of choice.”

“What do you mean . . . you knew?” Still leaning against the post, Jeff crossed his arms and gave her a hard, straight look.

“I ... knew.”

From downstairs, she heard Sam Dane shout, “Come on if you’re ready, Miss . . . Cousin Edith!”

“Just a minute. Dad!” Jeff yelled back, only just turning his head. He fixed his eyes on Edith to compel an answer.

She sought for one, something believable. As though he read her thoughts, he said, “Don’t try to lie. You can’t deceive me.”

“I wasn’t going to,” she answered, stung. “I’m just trying to think how to . . .”

A sound of heavy boots came clumping up the stairs, and Sam appeared in the open doorway. “Come on, Edith. If you two start talking, it’ll be Christmas before we get going.”

“Just a moment, while I pin up my hair.”

“No time,” Sam said. “Got to get to the depot so I can sign for the goods that are coming in.”

“What goods?” Jeff asked.

“Never you mind, son.” His father lay his finger alongside his nose. “Just get your hat on, Edith, and let’s go.”

“But I must put my hair up. It isn’t decent . . .”

“Ah, heck! I’ve never seen a woman yet that wouldn’t primp if she got half a chance.”

“That’s true, Dad. Do you remember how Gwen and Mother would keep us waiting? First one would come down and then the other and then they both trot back up because they’d forgotten something, or the other one would notice something wrong with the first one’s hair or dress.”

“Yep, that was it. We were five minutes late to church every single Sunday.”

By the time they’d finished their complaints, Edith was waiting by the door, her dark red hair smoothed into its dull bun. “Well, come on, if you’re in such a hurry,” she said.

The Dane men exchanged a wink. Then Sam followed her.

Jeff lingered a moment. It made him feel warmly sentimental to see the brush and comb sitting on the dressing table, while a green ribbon, caught when the drawer was closed, peeked out. It had been a long time since a woman’s dainties had adorned this room. He liked it and hoped it wouldn’t be long before such things were here to stay.

He could trust to Edith’s sense of responsibility. She’d stay, he knew, just as long as it took to find him a suitable wife. In the meantime, he’d have to keep his hands to himself. Soon enough, he wouldn’t have to be so careful. There’d be a nice woman here to warm his bed.

After all, it was only celibacy and Edith’s nearness that made such a dangerous combination. He couldn’t, in honor, do anything about the first fact, but he could keep her at arm’s length. He’d simply have to manage not to be alone with her.

Glancing at the white coverlet, he wondered how well Edith had slept. Probably she slept like the virgin she was, peacefully, dreamlessly. Her sleep could only be restful, untroubled by any ardent dreams.

He hadn’t slept well at all. He woke himself shivering in the cool breeze that blew through the windows his father left open year-round. His father tended to take up more than his fair share of the mattress, and he was a cover stealer as persistent as Paul Tyler, his partner of the Trinity gold days. Jeff shook his head ruefully, remembering those wild, carefree days.