Weeping Angel (33 page)

“Aren't you hungry?” he asked while reaching for another piece of chicken.

“Not very.”

“I guess you don't need to eat like a horse. You can eat this good whenever you take a mind to fix it.”

Her heart warmed.
He liked it.

“Now, take me,” he said after swallowing a mouthful. “About the only thing I can cook from scratch is a fried egg sandwich and open a bottle of beer.”

“Opening a beer isn't cooking,” she teased, taking a biscuit for herself. Maybe the bread would help settle the butterflies in her stomach.

“Well, this is some cooking. And speaking from a bachelor's point of view, being able to eat like this everyday would almost be worth getting married for.”

Her stomach flip-flopped and she took a bite of the biscuit. The flaky dough tasted like dust to her, and she needed something to wash down the lump. Though he'd said he liked the food, her cooking was nothing worth getting married for.

She rummaged through the basket for her jar of root beer. Finding it, she uncapped the top and poured two glasses. She drank hers in slow sips until she was able
to swallow the biscuit. Frank, on the other hand, downed his in several large gulps.

They ate the rest of their supper in companionable silence. Amelia didn't mind. She found she had absolutely nothing useful to say. She was giddy as a new bride, inexplicably shy all of a sudden.

As Frank finished off his latest helping, she hoped he wasn't going to search for more. After consuming two huge slices of pie, he'd just about cleaned out the basket. She'd managed to eat a biscuit and half her pickle. Perhaps she'd try the pie later when her stomach wasn't in knots. Maybe if she stood up, the pressure on her waist wouldn't be so bad.

Frank set his plate aside, leaned toward her, and before she knew what happened, he'd kissed her cheek. She sat there, shocked to her toes, and speechless.

“Amelia, sweetheart, that was the best goddamn dinner I have ever eaten in my life.”

She floundered for her voice and murmured, “I'm glad you liked it.”

“It was worth more than fifteen bucks.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Then he straightened his leg a bit and grabbed the heel of his boot. Pulling, he took first one, then the other off until all he had on his feet were his stockings.

“What are you doing?” she asked in a voice with controlled panic. Could it be, he'd eaten one dessert and was now looking for another kind? Inasmuch as she reveled in his kisses, she wouldn't go that far to make him like her.

“Going fishing,” came his moderate reply.

Relief flooded her, but then a quizzical frown set over her brow. “In your socks?”

He laughed. A deep laugh that rippled through her and made her warm. “No. Barefoot.” He peeled the
black stockings from his feet and stuffed them in his tall boots. Rolling up his pants, he said, “Why don't you take your shoes off and try it with me?”

“Oh, no. I couldn't take off my shoes.”

“Why not?”

“Because . . . I just couldn't.”

“Ah, hell. Nobody's around to see. Take 'em off, Amelia, and roll down your stockings. Have some fun.”

She sat straighten “I have fun.”

“None that I can see.”

“I'm a lot of fun,” she disputed. “You just haven't seen my fun side because we're usually at odds over the piano.”

“Christ,” he frowned. “Don't bring that up. We were having a good time.”

“I wasn't bringing up anything. I was trying to tell you I can be fun.”

“Then prove it.” Frank stood. “Take off your shoes and come wading with me. I'll teach you how to cast a line.”

Seizing on the one thing that would allow her to bow out gracefully, she said, “I don't have my button hook with me.”

To her consternation, he replied, “I'm sure I have something in my tackle box that can take your shoes off.”

Deflated, she murmured, “Oh.”

He bent on one knee and lifted the lid to the box. She heard a lot of shifting and pawing through metal before he came out with a long metal thing.

“Give me your foot.” He held out his hand to hold her ankle.

Amelia really didn't want him to see her naked feet. She didn't think they were remotely attractive, while Frank's . . . she moved her gaze down . . . were quite handsome. This wasn't the first time she'd seen his feet bare. He had perfectly shaped toes, with nice nails and a little bit of dark hair on the tops.

“Give me your foot,” he repeated.

Tentatively, she straightened her leg, discovering she'd developed a cramp in her shin. “Ow . . .” she moaned before she could stifle the whimper.

“What's wrong?”

“I have a cramp in my leg.”

“No wonder, by the way you've been sitting.” Frank took her foot and pushed her skirts higher on her leg. “I've told you, sweetheart, you need to loosen your corset.”

Aghast that he would guess the nature of her discomfort, she did her best not to blush. Then she remembered his words on the train depot that first afternoon they'd engaged in a conversation, or rather, dispute. He'd said she was laced too tight—a reference to her stiff character. That had to be what he was implying now. Why, then, didn't she feel better knowing he thought she was rigid instead of wearing her corset too tight?

Frank worked the buttons on the sides of her shoe, freeing them with the rod. Once they were unfastened, he slipped the patent leather from her foot. She couldn't stop the reflex of curling her toes in her black lisle hose. She brought her leg down, wincing as she extended her other one. As he poked that contraption into the side of her shoe, she asked, “What is that you're using?”

“Sockdologer spring fish hook.”

She grimaced. “Is there fish guts on it?”

“Nope.”

When Frank was finished, he slid the shoe off and held her leg by the calf. His hands were large and tan against her stocking; he kneaded her flesh for a minute and the pleasure of it sent tingles darting in all directions of her body. She closed her eyes and imagined him rubbing her calf for the rest of her life. She'd cook him the best meals ever.

Sighing, she opened her eyes to find him watching
her. His gaze had darkened with emotion. He enthralled her. He also scared her. What would she do if he swept the picnic cloth clean with his hand and demanded to make mad, passionate love to her? It was what she'd dreamed about, but now that she was with his flesh and blood body, she didn't think she'd have the nerve to go through with it.

She waited for him to move, her muscles tense and unyielding. She wished she could read his mind.

He turned away and, without saying a word, leaned back on his haunches and went to his fishing box again. She watched his fingers shake and thought that it was a good sign. He wasn't so sure of himself. He wasn't so immune as he let on. He did feel something for her. He just was afraid to admit it.

Amelia unrolled her stockings from her legs, and not once did Frank glance her way. She folded the delicate hosiery and put it by her shoes. Then she brought her feet under her dress so he wouldn't see them.

He busied himself with the line of his pole, tying on some intricate feathers and a hook. She couldn't stand the silence any further and asked, “Don't you use worms?”

Lifting his head, he said, “No fly fisherman in his right mind would ever dirty his hook with a worm.” He stood and held out his hand to help her up. She took the offering, fitting her fingers in his; electrical storm currents seemed to strike every time he touched her. With her pulse skittering, she looked at the connection of their hands. Her skin was pale as flour next to his. She bet he never once wore a pair of gloves.

He let her hand go sooner than she would have liked. The spread was toasty from the sun under her feet, and the first step she took in the grass felt cool and tickled her soles. Frank was already walking toward the water's edge. She took small steps, watching
where she placed her feet. Even the smallest pebble felt like a stone on the sensitive bottom of her foot.

Frank paused at a knee-high boulder and assessed the stream. There was a pool that looked made for wading, and he began to walk into it. He didn't cringe, so she assumed the water would be warm as a bathtub.

The first contact with her big toe, and she knew the water was a far cry from warm. Brisk was a better adjective.

“How far out are you going?” she asked when he kept walking, the cuffs of his pants getting wet where he hadn't rolled them high enough.

“Not far.”

She didn't continue, preferring to stand in the extreme shallow. She wasn't a swimmer, and the current, however gentle, looked deadly to her.

Frank flicked his wrist. She wouldn't have been able to see the fishing line if it hadn't glistened in the sun. The feather fly on the end snapped over the water in strokes so light, it seemed the lure barely kissed the sun-brilliant waves before he was moving it again.

She watched him, her heart heavy in her throat. He looked so peaceful, so serene, a startling contrast to the man he was at the baseball game. He never wore an expression like this in the saloon—a face of utter contentment, of relaxation.

As the sun poured over him in its golden glow, and the water bled into his expensive trousers, it struck her then that she didn't really know him at all. They'd been acquainted for nearly a month, and she couldn't remember any tales of his family nor his upbringing, save that he'd implied it was worth forgetting.

Right now she wanted to forget the piano stood between them, for suddenly, it didn't seem to matter who had it. The day was too joyous, the scenery too heavenly, to be troubled over finances and differences of opinion.

While he whipped the deceptive fly back and forth across the water, she held up her skirts and sloshed carefully toward the boulder to sit on its smooth surface. From there she could watch him better. From this height she could also see the tops of the red, white, and blue picnic canopies over the trees. In the distance the town continued to celebrate.

Cottonwoods lined the stream, and their buds had burst open, sending fuzzy, snowlike seeds through the lazy air. They fell around Frank, his arm stirring them as they landed on the water.

“Come on out here and I'll show you how to cast,” Frank said without missing a whip of his fly.

“No . . . I don't think so.” She felt safe on the dry rock and perfectly content to observe him.

He turned his head toward her, his eyes shaded from the woven brim of his panama. “Come on.”

“I've never fished before. I'd break something.”

“No, you won't.” As he spoke, a bite on his line bent his pole. He whisked a shimmering trout from the river and into the air.

Amelia sat up. “You got one!” she exclaimed.

Frank held the fish by the gills. “Get me the creel, Amelia. I forgot it.”

Amelia slid from the rock and stumbled to where he'd left his fishing gear. “What's a creel?”

“That basket with the strap.”

She picked up the creel, went toward the water, and stood at its edge. “Here.”

“Bring it out. Hurry.”

She bit her lip, contemplating his request. She would have thrown the creel to him—if she'd been any kind of thrower. But she couldn't even hit Hamlet with an apple when he was turning up her flower bed with his snout, and he was a big target.

“Come here!” Frank urged, the trout wiggling to be free.

Dismayed, Amelia bunched up her skirts and took a
tiny step. The cold mountain water washed over her feet, and she sucked in her breath. She hiked her petticoats even higher as she went another foot, the sand rough with pebbles beneath her. She teetered precariously as she went ankle-, then calf-deep, holding on to the creel for dear life and her skirts at the same time—as if either would save her, should she slip and fall.

“That's it, sweetheart, keep coming.”

Amelia glanced up at him, trying to save face by smiling as if she weren't the least bit nervous or frightened by the water whooshing between her legs. She had a yard to go and she'd be by his side.

Just shy of Frank, she slipped on a rock, but he caught her elbow before she could plunge into the water. Resuming her balance, she was proud of herself that she'd neither dropped the basket or her skirts.

She held out her hand and presented him with the creel.

“Thanks.” He put the strap over his arm, unhooked the fish, and let it go.

She watched in disbelief as the trout swam from her view, then disappeared into the deep pool. Gazing at Frank, she said, “Why did you do that?”

“I wasn't fishing for a meal, just for sport.”

“Sport?” She would have put her hands on her hips if not for the fact her dress would get drenched. “You made me come out here under the assumption you needed that basket for your fish.”

“That I did.”

“Why?”

“Because I wanted your company.”

“Well, I like that,” she complained. “I didn't want to admit this, but I can't swim. I'm sure that seems very ridiculous to you, you're apparently comfortable in the water, but I—”

Unexpectedly, he put his arm around her waist and pulled her close.

“I . . .” she trailed off, her mind muddled by the depths of his eyes. “ . . . never had the opportunity to learn how to . . . swim . . .”

She still grabbed hold of her skirt, her arm crushed between them. He brought his head over hers, his mouth close. Closer. “Stop talking,” he whispered.