Summer Lightning (32 page)

When Edith became aware that he was pursuing, she tried putting on a burst of speed. But her heart was already hammering, her throat already dry and tight. Then she tripped, over nothing more than her own feet, and went sprawling on the ground. She grunted as she fell headlong into the sweet grass.

Instantly, she rolled over, only to see him above her, his hands resting on his hips. Jeff’s face was stern, but she could see it was the severity of implacable virility, rather than anger. He wasn’t even breathing hard, until he looked at her. She felt very small and helplessly feminine, a harem slave at the feet of her master.

That thought was intolerable. Even in her stories, she’d never relished that setting. She might be obedient; she’d never be submissive. “Don’t just stand there,” she said, thrusting out a hand irritably. “Help me up.”

It seemed as if he’d never take her hand. When he did, his strength was machinelike, hauling her upright. She tried to free her hand when she was upright, but he pulled her closer.

“No,” she said, twisting. “Absolutely not.”

“Absolutely not . . . what?”

“I’m not letting you kiss me again.”

“I don’t want to kiss you.”

“You don’t . . . ?” She looked at him with suspicious eyes.

“No. I’m just going to hold you . . . like this.”

She was wrapped around by his warmth, her cheek against his bare skin. The scent of clean male filled her breathing. The sprinkle of damp hair over his chest tickled her chin, a madly arousing sensation. His fingertips massaged her back lightly, right up to the sensitive nape of her neck. Edith discovered she was pressing more tightly against his body than the strength of his arms alone could explain. She was aware of his every breath, almost his every thought.

Her hands slipped around his taut waist. She grasped the distinct columns of his back either side of his spine. Looking dreamily up into his eyes, she murmured, “I’m not giving in, Jeff. I’m not. . . .”

“Hush.”

He didn’t kiss her lips, the fiend. He kissed her cheek, her fluttering eyelids, the tip of her nose. He nibbled his way, with light, fleeting nips along the soft, sensitive edge of her jaw and down to the tender cord in the side of her neck. There he bit harder, with a suddenness that had Edith shivering. Calling his name, she demanded that he kiss her.

The throbbing note in her voice and the rigidity of her nipples against his chest told Jeff how ready she was. Her defenses were down. She was so ripe for the taking. And the grass around them was soft and thick.

He had no sanity where Edith was concerned. None. Gwen had never made his head spin like this. He’d never once considered making love to his wife out-of-doors, no matter how bright the moonlight. But then Gwen had never clung to him like this, never called his name so hotly, so urgently.

Edith reached up and caught his face between her hands. He instantly answered her kiss with his own, as she strained up against his body. She moved her hips against him, mindlessly aware of the hardness behind his jeans.

“And you won’t talk to the Armstrongs,” he said, as he filled his hands with her breasts.

“Wh-what?” Couldn’t he see there were buttons down her front? Why hadn’t he undone them yet? She guided his hand to the small buttons. A tension began to coil in her mid-section, and she knew he could release it.

He drew his tongue from her mouth to say, “You won’t talk to the Armstrongs. You won’t tell them that ridiculous story about you and Sullivan.”

Edith slapped her hand down flat over his, stopping him from pushing the buttons through their holes. The sexual haze still dimmed her thoughts but an alarm had rung in her head. “Are you trying to ... Oh, you are despicable! Lower than . . . lower than ... I can’t even think how low . . . how contemptible!”

“Hey!” he protested as she shoved him.

“You can’t win this argument with seduction, my friend.” That her knees had melted was unimportant. “I’ll do . . .”

The sound of a window sash sliding up cut her off. “Hey,” said a very sleepy little girl. “Who’s yelling?”

The adults exchanged a guilty glance that asked, How much do you think she heard?

“Nobody, Louise,” Jeff said looking up. “Go to sleep, baby.”

Louise gazed blearily down. “I had a bad dream. Daddy.”

“I’ll be up in a minute to tuck you in, okay?”

She nodded. Propping her elbows on the windowsill, she cradled her chin in her hands. Edith saw that the girl was nearly asleep sitting there. She dared to venture a last word.

“I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night,
Mister
Dane.” She spun about sharply and marched away.

Try as she might, however, she couldn’t sleep. Even the weight of the sheet over her was unbearable. She stared up at the plain white ceiling and demanded to know how she wound up so deranged. It was all Jeff’s fault, of course. He would have to be amazingly good-looking, impossibly likable and overwhelmingly lovable. Who taught him how to go from arousing her right down to her soul and then, just like that, be able tenderly to comfort his daughter’s wakefulness?

It’s just not fair! she complained, raising up to punch her hapless pillow once again. She should have picked someone ordinary to fall in love with, someone easy to leave. If she’d been smart, she would have fallen for Mr. Maginn. She would have looked forward to forgetting him!

Edith feared that her restless night showed on her face the next morning. She said down to a breakfast she didn’t want.

“Well,” Sam said at the end, looking at her nearly full plate. “Seems like nobody’s hungry around here this morning. Not you—that’s a first—and Jeff didn’t want breakfast either.”

“I do, Gran’pa,” Maribel said, with a hopeful air.

Sam stood up. “We’ve eaten up all the pancake batter, darlin’. But if a split biscuit with honey’ll do you . . .”

“Yes, please,” both girls said loudly.

“All right, all right.” He fixed them the addition to their breakfast and then said, “Go on and take it outside. Pretty day today . . . might pretty.”

He sat down again after pouring himself another cup of his special thick coffee. “Okay, so how you want to work this?” At her blank expression, he said, “You know . . . the Armstrongs? Now if I were you, I ‘d talk to her first. Millie’s always been strong and a lot less likely to get riled than Ezra. He kind of loses his temper and doesn’t pay much attention to what he damages. Though he’s always sorry afterward, it doesn’t do much good to mend the broken heads and bruises. And there’s nothing in the world that’ll rile a man faster than learning his daughter’s intended is a scoundrel, a hound, and a no-good liar.”

Sam drained his coffee mug. With an impatient flick of his arm, he threw it against the wall. Edith flinched as the mug smashed into thick white shards.

Grouchy started to his feet with a muffled woof. Then he left the room, looking reproachfully over his tan shoulder.

Sam went on as though he’d done no more than put the mug in the sink. “But Millie’s different. She burns down low. If I guess right, she’ll have Sullivan’s hide off him and hung out to dry before he knows what hit him. Dulcie takes after her father more. We may have to hold her off Sullivan, or we’ll be tripping over pieces of him clear to the county line.”

“What about you, Sam?”

“Me? I’ve got nothing to do with it.”

“But last night .  . .”

He waved his anger away. “I guess I was kind of sore. Who wouldn’t be? But it’s really nothing to do with me.”

Sam reached out for his coffee. When his fingers closed on empty air, he seemed confused. Turning his head, he saw the white fragments scattered widely with splatters of coffee slowly dripping down the wall. Unable to meet Edith’s eyes, he pushed himself out of his chair. “Ought to clean that up,” he said.

With a greater effort than usual, Edith achieved a state of relaxation. Using her inner sight, she gazed fixedly at Sam. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence that he had strong feelings for Miss Albans. Yet Edith saw no sign of the radiance that surrounded people who loved. Even to her most searching, intense gaze, Sam remained unlit.

She must be wrong. There was no love in Sam for Vera. His looking after her must just be the responsibility that the Danes seemed to naturally accept for everyone. Even Jeff’s protection in St. Louis could be seen in that light.

“I’ll go get ready,” she said, rising.

Soon after, she came down, looking neat and honest, she hoped, in a brown seersucker skirt and waist. It was her least favorite of the four outfits she’d been given. Her little straw hat with the plain silk ribbons gave her an innocent air that Jeff took exception to.

“If you’re determined to go through with this,” he said, leaning on the buggy’s big rear wheel, “you ought to be wearing tight black satin. Or maybe scarlet.”

Edith didn’t have a chance to be shy with him. “You would know more about that sort of thing than I would, Mr. Dane,” she shot back. “Or have you forgotten your friend Sabrina?”

“No, I’m not likely to forget her. I wonder what she’s doing now?” He smiled reminiscently. “Bet I can guess.”

“Bet you can,” Edith muttered. Then she looked angelically toward the sky as though such a vulgar reply must have originated from some otherworldly source.

“Get in,” Jeff said, holding out his hand.

She hesitated. “I thought Sam . . .”

“I’m driving you. Get in.”

Wordlessly, Edith took his hand to step up. Before she was ready, he took his support away. Edith sat down harder than she had expected. It was as if he couldn’t bear her touch.

They drove in silence all the way to town. When he would have stopped before the Armstrongs’ house, however, Edith said, “Would you drive on, please?”

“Are you scared? Or have you changed your mind?”

“Neither. But I promised Louise I’d find her a muslin petticoat. She was wearing a wool one yesterday and it was much too hot and itchy. You saw how much trouble she had sitting still in church.”

“I never sat still in church,” Jeff said, “and I never wore a petticoat either.”

“Guilty conscience, then?” She gave him a look that told him soulless brutes often had that trouble.

In the dry goods store, Edith compared children’s petticoats while Jeff rocked back and forth on his heels. “How many are there?” he asked.

The lady clerk answered, “Oh, we have a wide selection, Mr. Dane. Ranging from the simple muslin at thirty-seven cents to the fine cambric with the lace at one dollar.”

“The fancy one,” Jeff said.

“No.” Edith picked up the simple white underskirt. “This one will be easier for Sam to keep clean. Wrap it up, please.”

As the clerk unrolled brown paper, Jeff said, “I thought you were trying to make Louise feel pretty. You know, I found that hair ribbon you gave her under her pillow last night.”

“I do want Louise to feel pretty,” Edith said, moved. “But the girls told me that Sam ruins lace by washing it incorrectly.

They were resigned to losing their nicest things because he just doesn’t understand that lace is different from denim.”

“Oh,” Jeff said, rubbing the back of his neck. “I didn’t know that.”

The clerk came back. “On your account, Mr. Dane?”

“Thanks.” He took the package and stood back for Edith to pass in front of him. Edith was aware of his eyes tracing over her from top to bottom and wondered what he was thinking.

As they walked down the steps, Edith heard someone call, “Miss Parker?”

Squinting in the bright sunshine after the dark shop, Edith peered across the street. A woman, her lower body hidden behind a cloud of children, waved to her. Looking both ways, cautioning the children not to run in front of a hay wagon, she crossed.

“Hello, Miss Parker, Mr. Dane,” Mrs. Green said over the children’s heads. Some were laughing, at least two were arguing, and the littlest one in her arms just stared around a fat fist. They were all neat and clean, with the patches in their clothes well mended and even a few new items gleaming here and there. The baby was wrapped in a beautifully ironed shawl, while the oldest girl wore an apron hand embroidered with the fancy stitches Mrs. Green had used at the sewing bee.

“I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to thank you for bringing little Rudy to me the other day.” She looked down fondly to where the blond boy was hanging on her skirt. “He really was frightened, poor lamb.”

Edith gazed around at the children and then again at Mrs. Green who chortled charmingly. “Oh, yes. I’m taking charge of them all. Stop it, boys.” She spoke without looking at Al and Konrad, obviously plotting some mischief against the girls. Instantly, they looked innocent as angels.

“Then Mr. Huneker and .  . .”

“I suppose there’s no point in keeping it a secret. We’ll be married very soon. He keeps saying “ . .” Mrs. Green glanced up at Jeff and then twinkled at Edith. “He’s awfully romantic, more like a schoolboy than a grown man. He keeps saying that every day that goes by is a day wasted. So far as he’s concerned he won’t be really living until we’re married.”

“That is romantic,” Edith agreed, not without a small sigh.

“And I wanted to thank you, Miss Parker. If you hadn’t brought Rudy along that day, I might not have met Ernst for months. You’d figure in a town this size it would have been impossible for us to miss each other, but somehow we did.” She began to sway back and forth as the baby in her arms went gradually limp, the waxy lids falling over big blue eyes.

A voice called, “Adelia!” Mrs. Green turned at once, her smile mingling tender affection and exasperation. “God love the man,” she said. “I’ve only been gone five minutes.”

The gray-haired meat cutter came hurrying up, with eyes only for the plump widow. “I remembered what else was needed. Scissors. Bing used them last to pry up some nails and they became very dull and dented.”

“For goodness’ sake, Ernst. I have scissors. Big ones and little ones. I’ll bring them along when I move . . . after we’re married. Don’t forget your manners. Say hello to . . .”

Mr. Huneker grasped Edith by the hand and shook it vigorously. “The so-nice young lady who guides my Adelia to me! Like a saint.”