Summer Lightning (9 page)

As the porter pocketed the folded money Jeff held out to him, he said, “Thanks, sir. Maybe I’ll see you on your return trip, Miss Parker. And I’ll be taking your advice.”

“I’m glad, Mr. Vincent. She must be a very nice girl.”

“That she is.” Seeing that their bags had been unloaded from the second to last car, the porter waved his dark hand at the engineer, leaning out of his window. As the whistle shrilled Mr. Vincent swung back aboard.

Edith waved and, as the train rolled past, she gave Jefferson an uncertain smile. He had seen her comfortably bestowed in first class and then had all but disappeared for the remainder of the trip. He still smelted of pipe and cigar smoke.

She’d seen him once, when he’d taken her into the hotel car to share a dinner with her. She couldn’t complain of her treatment—the Pullman Palace car she had slept in had been more like Versailles than a box on wheels—but she wondered at his unexpected reserve. Perhaps he was tired. He hadn’t come into the sleeping car. She’d watched for him until her heavy eyes had defeated her.

“You must be fatigued, Mr. Dane. Is it far to your home?”

“I’m well, thank you, Miss Parker. And no, it’s not far but too far to walk. I’ll get my buggy from the livery stable.”

He took her arm and walked with her into the depot. They were the only passengers stopping in Richey, and the interior was deserted, very different from the bustling noise and confusion of the St. Louis station. Jefferson asked her if she’d like to rest on one of the benches while he went for the buggy.

Edith agreed gratefully. Though the train had been the epitome of comfort, it had still traveled at a speed of close to forty miles per hour while swaying from side to side. Edith could still feel the motion when she closed her eyes.

She opened them when she heard a noise. Glancing around, she saw that the roller shade behind the cashier’s window was flapping slightly, as though in a breeze. Edith rose to study the train schedule posted behind a glass. In the reflecting surface, she saw a pair of spectacled eyes peering at her from beneath the shade the way a lizard peers from beneath its family rock.

Edith felt acutely uncomfortable under this secret stare. Trying to be casual, she picked up her new alligator handbag from the bench and slipped outside to wait for Jeff.

He came back quickly, driving a bay horse between the shafts of a shiny black buggy. As soon as he pulled up, a middle-aged man in a tight blue coat came out of the station, placing his peaked cap on his balding head. Climbing down from the springy seat, Jeff said, “Hey, Arnie. How’s business?”

“Pretty good, pretty good.” Behind rimless glasses, the station master’s slightly protuberant pale blue eyes fixed on Edith. Now she knew who had been so furtively watching her.

Jeff wrapped his hand around her elbow, pulling her closer to his side. “Arnie Sloan, this is my cousin, Miss Parker, from St. Louis.”

“Morning, ma’am,” Mr. Sloan said. His eyes took in her clothes as though he were memorizing them. Edith’s face burned, but she forced a smile.

“Want some coffee before you head on out to Jeff’s place, Miss Parker?”

Jeff answered for her. “Right nice of you, Arnie, but we best be getting along. Dad’s bound to have breakfast going.”

“I’ll give you a hand with the bags,” Mr. Sloan volunteered. Edith saw how he examined the labels of her luggage and ran his hands over the leather as though appraising how new it was.

“I bought them before I left St. Louis,” Edith said to him. “I’ve never traveled anywhere before. Being on the railroad, you must have many chances to travel.”

“No, ma’am. Plenty to see and do here at home. Been station master nigh on ten years, ain’t never been bored yet.”

“I’m sure you haven’t been.” She held out her hand. “Nice to have met you, Mr. Sloan.”

Jeff helped her into the buggy. “See you at the meeting tomorrow, Arnie.”

“I’ll be there. ‘Bye now, Miss Parker,” he called, as Jeff slapped the reins over the bay’s back. They set off down the road, Edith holding her hat against her head.

“He’s the biggest gossip in town,” Jeff grumbled. “Some he knows; a lot he makes up.”

“Then I’m glad I was polite to him. Though I don’t like deceiving anyone about my relationship with you. And your family,” she added. She didn’t want him to think she had begun bracketing the two of them together.

“I don’t like it myself. I like to be beforehand with the world. Saves trouble. But in this case . . .” He shrugged. “It’s for your own protection.”

They were already out of the small town. The land rose and fell gently beneath the horse’s hooves. Everything was green and pleasant, the crops in the fields high and lush. Early as it was, a certain moisture in the air prophesied a hot and sticky day ahead. Yet the freshness of the air and the lack of crowding buildings made even a muggy day one to look forward to. Edith felt a pain in her breast, as though her heart had expanded for the first time, snapping some confining bond.

“So,” Jeff said, keeping his eyes on the road. “What was all that with the porter?”

“What was what?”

“What advice did you give him? And why were you talking to everybody and his Aunt Lucy aboard that train? You wouldn’t even say ‘boo’ to me when I first met you.”

Edith looked at his frowning profile. “There is a difference between chatting to people while sharing a common experience and speaking to a man and a stranger in the street.”

“A man who has accosted you in the street, you mean.”

“I suppose I do.”

“Very well. And the advice? Something about a woman?”

She hoped he had forgotten. “We were . . . talking about his mother.”

Jeff drew back on the reins. The living silence of the Missouri morning surrounded them. The wind rustled the tops of the trees while the cicadas sang their monotonous song. A few birds looked curiously at the people before returning to their search for breakfast.

“His mother is a ‘very nice girl’?”

Edith stared down into her clasped hands. A hardheaded businessman like Mr. Dane would never believe the truth. Perhaps she could bend her words to fit the listener. Lying, it seemed, was a practice hard to resist.

“We spoke for a moment last night about his lady friend. That’s all. Really.”

He nodded and slapped the reins over the horse’s back. “You’re a lousy liar,” he said evenly. “I’ll remember that.”

Edith felt compelled to explain, stumbling over her hasty words. “I haven’t had much practice. But I thought . . . you did hire me for your problems, Mr. Dane. I thought you wouldn’t like it if I gave advice to someone else, on your time.”

“Do what you please, Miss Parker. I’ve hired you. I have not bought you, body and soul.”

Edith felt a shiver at the base of her spine. What would it be like if he had bought and paid for her? She dragged on the reins of her runaway imagination. “In that case, I will tell you that Mr. Vincent was hesitant about proposing matrimony to a young lady he’d only known for a few weeks.”

“I haven’t known you that long, but I know what you said.”

“Naturally, I told him not to go too fast. He might frighten her if he suddenly laid his heart at her feet. Or what is worse, she might not think him sincere.”

“I lose my bet. I would have guessed you’d tell him not to waste any more time but get on with it.”

“That would have been most imprudent.”

Edith turned her head as though the fence they drove beside was the most interesting thing she’d ever seen. Perhaps lying was a skill that improved with a little practice, for he hadn’t noticed her untruth this time. But how amazing that Jeff Dane should come to understand her so quickly. She had, in fact, given the porter that exact advice. The glow about his frame had been as brilliant as the sun, for the love between Mr. Vincent and his lady was shared fully.

In a little while, Jeff drew up before a two-story white farmhouse. The roof of the porch that ran around the front of the house seemed almost to reach the ground. A walk led up to the front, waist-high masses of rose shrubs bordering the crushed white stone. Their heavenly fragrance rose to meet Edith as she stood to get down from the buggy.

“How beautiful,” she sighed as Jefferson lifted her down.

Looking up into her face, as she gazed at his home, Jeff had to agree. Quickly, he swung her down. “Those are my father’s doing. He loves his roses. I’m not allowed to touch ‘em. Cows I can manage but I just kill plants.”

“I’ve never been lucky that way either.”

He’d walked ahead down the path, carrying Orpheus, leaving her to follow. “I wonder where everyone is,” he said aloud. “Usually, when I come home, they come charging out like . . .”

“Daddy!”

From two directions, little comets hurled themselves toward their father. One caught him about the waist, the other about the knees. As he began to sag, he threw Edith a laughing look, holding out the birdcage. With an answering smile, she took it.

Instantly, Jeff bent and scooped his two daughters up in a giant embrace. The larger girl chattered away, seemingly intent on filling her father’s ear with all the happenings of the week in the shortest possible time. The little one just giggled.

Without putting either girl down, their father juggled them around so that they were each tucked under one of his arms. He carried the laughing girls up the stairs to the deep, cool porch.

Sitting down on a hard chair, Jeff brought the girls upright to sit on his knees. “This is Miss Edith Parker, girls. She’s come to stay with us for a while.”

Two pairs of eyes, matching hazel, looked up at her. Except for their eye color, the little girls were as different as could be. The little one’s hair curled riotously above her baby-plump face. Her nose was tiny and her mouth a tight rosebud of light pink. It was impossible to say how she would look when older.

Louise’s face was more defined with a short snub for a nose and a chin astonishingly determined in one so young. She seemed all too intelligent. Her bright eyes flashed on Edith and in an instant, Edith felt as though she’d been examined to her boot soles and backbone.

“Hello,” she said timidly.

It was Maribel who spoke first. “What’s that?” She pointed to the cloaked cage.

“This is Orpheus.” Edith pulled off the covering. The little yellow bird gave her a reproachful look, his head tipped to one side. Then, as though testing his voice, he chirped once or twice. Maribel squealed in delight and squirmed off her father’s lap. Kneeling, she peered into the cage.

“Does he sing?” Louise stood by her sister.

“When he wants to,” Edith said.

She slipped a glance toward Jeff. He leaned forward in his chair, his powerful hands spread wide on his knees. As if feeling her look, he met her eyes. Boldly, he winked. Edith jerked her attention back to the children.

Maribel poked a chubby finger between the bars. “Here, birdie.”

Orpheus tipped his head back and sent a shower of golden notes into the air. Then he flipped his wings as though waiting for applause. Maribel clapped twice. “Sing!” she commanded.

Orpheus obliged.

“You’re a dreadful show-off,” Edith said indulgently.

Jeff stood up. “Let’s put him up here.” He lifted the cage to a hook in the crossbeam of the porch. The early morning sunlight did not reach directly in but the beams were bright enough to turn the canary’s feathers to gold.

Orpheus began to sing what was obviously an ode in honor of the morning. The sudden crowing of a rooster didn’t make him break off. Rather he seemed to take it as a challenge and increased the beauty of his aria.

“He’ll need water,” Edith said. “And I have his seeds in my luggage, if you girls would like to help me feed him.”

She’d prepared on the train to meet tears or shyness. After all, the girls wouldn’t know who she was and she’d been bashful with strangers all her life. Now she had only to meet Jeff’s father. If she could survive that ordeal . . . but no, Jeff had said it had been his father’s idea that she should come.

She heard the tap-drag of the elder Mr. Dane’s footsteps before she saw him. The girls spun around from contemplating the bird and danced to the door. “Gran’pa, Daddy’s home!”

One attached to each of his hands, they dragged him onto the porch. “Howdy, son. Didja . . . ‘?”

“Yeah, Dad. This is Cousin Edith, from St. Louis.”

“‘Course it is. I’d know you anywhere, cousin. And you’ll have to call me Uncle Sam. Well, maybe not. Sounds a little too Yankee for me. Just call me Sam.”

His grin was the same as his son’s, only not quite as broad or infectious. The big shoulders were like Jeff’s too, only weighted by an extra twenty years. It was his left leg that dragged. His eyes were deep-set and his blond hair showed touches of frost. Despite that, the two men looked more like brothers than father and son.

When Edith shook hands with him, she felt no electric tingle as she had with Jeff. However, she was aware of the faintest glimmer about him, almost imperceptible even to her sharp sense.

“Don’t leave our cousin standing, son,” the older Mr. Dane said. “Breakfast’ll be ready in two shakes.” He glanced at his granddaughters. “Get washed up, my beauties.”

“Yes, Gran’pa,” the two girls piped and ran off.

Jeff said, “I’ll get your luggage, Miss Parker.”

“Perhaps . . . if I could go to my room first. I’d like to take my hat off.”

“That’s right, son. First things first. Speaking of which, my pie’s about ready to come out. ‘Scuse me, miss. I mean, Cousin Edith.” He grinned.

Jeff and Edith followed Mr. Dane into the house. “Dad’s one of the best cooks around. We used to have a bunch of ladies coming around after Mother died, bringing all sorts of food. Maybe he should have married one of ‘em but he said he’d rather learn to cook than replace Mother.”

“When did she pass away?”

“Two years ago. Here you are.”

The rooms they’d passed through had been neat without being finicky. She noticed the mantels and tables were bare of knick-knacks, not even pictures. However, there were a great many books, both on shelves and scattered freely around.

At the end of the upstairs hall, Jeff swung open a door and stood aside to let her enter a good-sized white room. Instead of the heavy curtains, beaded, hobbled, and fringed, that her aunt had always hung, thin muslin covered the windows, draped back to let the full sunshine in. The brass bed was neatly made, the candlewick spread flat and nearly smooth. A mirror above a plain pine dressing table showed Edith her own tired face.