WILD OATS (11 page)

Chapter Eight

Jedwin knocked lightly on the back screen of the Briggs cottage just after dark.

"Mrs. Briggs," he whispered against the door. "It's me, Jedwin, could you let me in?"

Nervously he glanced around the area to assure himself that he was not being watched. He'd left his rig at home and had walked south out of town and then circled back to Cora's cottage at the far north end.

Her face flushed with pleasure, Cora opened the back door with a warm smile. That smile faded quickly as Jedwin pushed past her into the house. Without so much as a "howdy-do," Jedwin rushed into the parlor and began jerking down the shades.

"What is going on?" Cora asked. Her startled expression was neither quite anger nor humor.

"People are watching your house," Jedwin answered without turning to look at her.

"Watching my house?"

"Let's go into the kitchen," he suggested, taking her arm protectively. "It's all my fault."

"What's your fault? What are you talking about, Jedwin?"

He seated her at her own kitchen table and then turned to the stove. "I'll make us some tea," he said, grabbing up the kettle and taking it to the pump.

Cora's eye's widened with surprise. She'd never heard of a man who could make tea.

"The pump's froze up," Cora told him. "There's clean water in the reservoir."

Jedwin nodded and opened the gray enamel-lined tub built into the side of the stove. With the dipper that hung on a hook at the corner, he scooped out enough water to fill the kettle and then set it on one of the burners. With a quick glance into the fire box, Jedwin gave the coals an encouraging poke before turning to Cora.

"You make tea?" she asked.

Jedwin's grin widened. “I used to follow my mama around more faithfully than a shadow. I can
almost
do a lot of little household chores. But don't let the word get out. I wouldn't want the women after me."

Cora giggled, inexplicably pleased at his ease at admitting something that most men would try to hide. "So you enjoyed working alongside your mother?"

Jedwin shrugged and then shook his head negatively. "It wasn't that I
enjoyed
working with Mama, but more that I
hated
working with Pa."

The warm crooked grin had faded now and that intensity was back in Jedwin's brown eyes.

"You didn't get along with your father?"

"We got along fine," Jedwin said. "I admired that man . . . oh, how I admired him." Jedwin's attention was momentarily captured by some memory in the distant past. “I wanted him to be proud of me."

Cora nodded. "That's what everyone wants from their parents. And I'm sure that he was."

Raising his eyes to hers, Jedwin looked at her a long minute before he shook his head. "No," he said. "I was always a big disappointment to my father."

As if such a statement customarily brought an end to that discussion, Jedwin turned his back to Cora and began perusing the kitchen cupboards.

"Where are the teacups?" he asked casually.

"I'll get them," Cora said as she immediately rose to her feet. ' "This is still my kitchen, Mr. Sparrow. Sit down while I make the tea."

Jedwin did as bid. It was a pleasure watching Cora move about. When her back was turned he let his eyes wander the narrow curve of her waist and the wide flare of her hip. He remembered the thrilling feel of her fingernails on his backside. It would surely be a pleasure straight from heaven if he could return
the
favor.”I was at Penny's last week and I heard your mother saying she was going to have the town renamed."

Startled from his fantasy exploration of Cora's bottom, it took Jedwin a minute before her words penetrated his skull.

"Yes," he said finally. "She's determined to have the name changed to Briggston."

Setting the tea service in the middle of the table, Cora gave him an impatient look. "She told Fanny Penny that it would give the town a better chance at becoming the county seat."

Jedwin nodded. "It might at that, but that's not why she's doing it, of course."

"Why is she doing it?"

"To please Miss Maimie. It's been the goal of my mama's life to become Miss Maimie's social heir."

Jedwin chuckled, but Cora didn't find his words amusing.

"I believe the tea is ready," she said, picking up the pot. Cora poured him a generous portion and pushed the sugar bowl closer to him.

"I would think that your mother had already secured her place in Miss Maimie's affection," she said.

Shaking his head, Jedwin disagreed. "Oh no, Mrs. Briggs, Miss Maimie will keep Mama hanging until the very last possible minute. She doesn't grant her favor easily."

"I know."

The quiet anger in Cora's tone brought Jedwin a swift reminder of Cora's place in the Briggs family. Since she was the now removed daughter-in-law, discussion of the social legacy of Maimie Briggs might not be terribly tactful.

There was an uneasy silence between them for a few moments. Jedwin finally broke it by asking the question that had been bothering him.

"I know you and Miss Maimie have a lot of hard feelings,"

he said quietly. "Was it Miss Maimie who broke up you and Luther?"

Cora gave a humorless chuckle and then shook her head disdainfully. "Oh no. Miss Maimie didn't break us up. In a way you could say she got us together. If she had had her way, Luther and I would still be living happily ever after."

The bitterness in her tone came as a surprise to Jedwin. Somehow he'd imagined Mrs. Briggs was quite content with her life.

"Are you saying that Luther left you?"

Cora raised her head abruptly. "I divorced him," she said.

"For desertion."

"You can't desert if you never volunteered," Cora replied obtusely. "Incompatibility. That's what the divorce decree says. Thank God there is such a reason in the territory. That way, we never had to testify in court."

Jedwin was puzzled. "It was all over town that you'd sued him for desertion."

Cora smiled. “I know. Your mother spread it all over town that way." She folded her hands against her chin and looked at Jedwin challengingly. "Just because your mother said it, doesn't mean it was the truth."

"I'm sure my mother wouldn't deliberately lie—"

“She just did what Maimie told her to do,'' Cora interrupted easily. "If she had any mind of her own, I might really blame her!"

Silent for a moment, Jedwin stared at the woman across the table from him. Slowly a smile began to flicker at the corners of his mouth.

"I believe you are trying to start a fight with me, Mrs. Briggs."

Cora raised an assessing eyebrow. "Is it going to work?"

"No, I don't think so. I love my mama and I'd defend her to the death if need be. But she's a mite shy of perfect, and I suspect I know that better than anyone."

With an appreciative nod, Cora acknowledged Jedwin's point. "Your tea is getting cold."

Jedwin sipped. Cora watched him, and reflected on his steady, calm, and clear thinking. In her experience, men generally acted first and thought about it later. Jedwin Sparrow was clearly a young man with a good head on his shoulders.

"I can't imagine why you could ever think that your father was not proud of you," she said.

Momentarily startled, Jedwin glanced up from his tea. Cora's direct look was unsettling.

"I'm not a good undertaker," he blurted out.

"You're not?" Cora seemed genuinely surprised. "I don't believe I've ever heard a word against you,"

He shrugged. “Then you are not talking to the right people, Mrs. Briggs," he answered. "I'm so bad at it, I had to hire Haywood Puser to do my job."

Puzzled, Cora wasn't quite sure what to believe. "But you still do all the undertaking business, don't you? I understood that Mr. Puser just took over the embalming."

"That's what my father wanted me to be," he explained. "A licensed embalmer. I have my license, but I can't embalm."

"Why not?" she asked.

Suddenly embarrassed at his revelation, Jedwin quickly threw off the question. "Never mind, Mrs. Briggs. It is a very old and very long story. Your concern should be about yourself. Do you know the people of this town are watching your house?"

Shaking her head with wry humor, Cora set the teapot on the table. "People in this town have been watching me for years," she said, smiling. “I just have the good manners not to watch them back."

Jedwin leaned forward in concern. "If they watched you before,
now
they are really watching. They suspect something."

Cora waved away his concern. "They always suspect something."

"It's the fence," Jedwin said finally. "They think they have evidence against you now because of the fence."

Her smile faded.

"Reverend Bruder figured out that the fence was painted at night." Jedwin shook his head in self-derision. "Nobody would repair a fence at night, unless there was something to hide."

Cora clasped her hands together under her chin and gazed at Jedwin thoughtfully.

Her perusal was nearly his undoing. "I wanted to do something nice for you, Mrs. Briggs," he told her softly. "But I guess I've set the hounds out after you."

"The hounds have always been after me," Cora answered easily with a wave of her hand. "I'm just glad to have my fence fixed."

"I swear, Mrs. Briggs," Jedwin confessed. "If I'd thought for a moment that my actions would have caused trouble for you—''

"Then you would have never shown up at my doorstep with your unchaste proposition?"

The question hung between them momentarily before Jedwin gave her an appeasing grin.

"Then I would never have painted the fence."

Cora actually giggled at his response. "As I have said before, Jedwin, I do admire an honest man."

"About the fence—" he began.

"Don't let's say another word about it," Cora interrupted. "It is spilled milk for sure. We will just have to take care to be more discreet in the future."

"The future?" Jedwin swallowed a little nervously. "Are you agreeing to have a ... are you—"

"Jedwin, dear, why are you always stumbling over the words? I'm agreeing to allow you to call upon me, discreetly. That is, if you promise not to fix my fence again." Her eyes were bright with amusement and Jedwin couldn't help but smile back.

"Mrs. Briggs, I—" Jedwin looked at her longingly. She was the idealized hope of his youth, the dream he slept with and the thoughts of his every waking moment. A thousand times he'd relived that unconscionable and indescribable time alone with her upstairs. Had she really been wearing her nightclothes? Had her feet truly been naked beside his booted ones? Oh, heaven of fantasies, had she really grabbed his backside and pulled him on top of her? He reached across the table and clasped her warm hand in his. He needed to touch her, just to touch her, he promised himself. There was strength in his grasp, but his heart trembled all the same.

As he pulled Cora's hand toward him, it was clear he intended to bestow a gentle kiss on her knuckles, like the one he'd given her the other night. The immediate response of fluttering fireflies in her abdomen frightened Cora. Stiffly she withdrew her hand, but softened the rejection with a bright smile. "Do you think you could fix my pump, Jedwin?"

"Pump?"

"Yes, the kitchen pump," she said. "It's froze up."

He stared at her stupidly for a moment. It was a long jump in his mind from the wild imaginings of his dreams to the reality of Mrs. Briggs's kitchen.

"Oh, the pump!" he said finally. "Of course, of course." As he came too hastily to his feet, he knocked the kitchen chair over backward and then nearly tripped over it as he clumsily tried to right it again.

"The pump . . . right, the pump." Jedwin made his way to the painted gray cast-iron sink. He examined the handle fastenings before turning back to her. "You have some tools?"

Cora hurried past him to the pantry, where from its burial place deep in an obscure corner, she pulled out a well-worn potato sack that clanged with the sound of metal. She dragged it toward him.

Jedwin squatted down and opened the bag, examining the strange variety of worn and rusty tools that it contained. He pulled out a harness bracket, several (but not all) of the pieces to a carriage jack, a claw-head hammer that was broken at the butt, a copper bit burnisher, and an iron hoof pick.

Glancing up, he saw Cora looking down at him hopefully. "Do you think you can fix it?"

He smiled with guarded confidence. "Do you have any other tools, Mrs. Briggs? Maybe a pipe wrench or a pair of pliers?''

Cora shook her head thoughtfully. "I've some gardening tools out in the shed," she told him helpfully. "A couple of rakes and a hoe."

Jedwin stared at her for a moment in quiet disbelief and then spoke gently, determined to keep any humor or condescension out of his tone. "I don't believe I'll be able to fix it with a rake, Mrs. Briggs."