WILD OATS (22 page)

Tulsa May was attempting to pry open the lid of a bushel basket with her fingernails. Jedwin helpfully pulled a screwdriver from his apron and popped the top off the basket. “Most of these are jonquils," he told her. "They are about the hardiest flower I know and they'll bloom most any time of year. I've heard stories about them coming up through the snow. But I can't say that I've actually seen that myself."

Tulsa May nodded. "What are these?" she asked, holding up a very round ball-like bulb.

"Those are tulips. I don't have much luck with tulips myself."

"So you gave them to me to try?"

He chuckled. “Well, my bad luck with them comes from the moles and gophers. I put these bulbs in the ground and those varmints seem to think they are playtoys. They will dig them out and roll them down their runs. When spring comes my tulip bed is barren, but I have the occasional tulip popping up in the yard, through the carriage-house floor, or right in the middle of the street!"

Jedwin shook his head as Tulsa May laughed at his exaggerated dismay.

"I figured that up in these flower boxes, the gophers wouldn't be able to get to them. But," he said dramatically, "the first time I come out here and see little ladders made of twigs leaning up against these flower boxes, I'm giving up tulips completely!"

Jedwin worked most of the morning, cheerfully hammering together the flower boxes. Tulsa May helped as much as she was allowed. Miss Maimie set up a constant complaint about the noise and had the young girl scurrying to and fro in attempts to placate her.

Tulsa May clearly wanted to work with Jedwin and she quickly showed an aptitude for painting. Her carpentry talents, however, were limited. Midway through the chore Jedwin heard her howl and raced to her side. She'd managed to catch the side of her thumb between the hammer and the nail head, raising a dark blood blister.

Tulsa May was trying to shake the pain out when Jedwin reached her. He grabbed her hand and began blowing forcefully on the injured thumb. As she quieted, he began to stroke her fingers and palm, urging circulation rather than swelling the area. After a moment he realized that the service he was performing was intimate in nature. He glanced up at Tulsa May to see her grimacing in pain, but in no way embarrassed by his closeness. Jedwin also felt no shame. There was nothing of man and woman in his touch. Only the comfort of brother for sister. He released her hand.

"Are you okay?"

Tulsa May nodded, holding her thumb in her own mouth for a couple of seconds before shaking it once more. "I'm fine," she insisted. "Mercy sakes, I'm so clumsy, you'd think I'd be completely callused over by now."

Jedwin looked at her a long moment. The penny brown eyes and the gap-toothed grin were so familiar and so endearing.

She was giggling over her own clumsiness. "I was just trying to put a little bit of
myself
into these flower boxes."

His smile warm and genuine, Jedwin leaned forward to tousle her carrot-colored curls. She was just a little girl. Had he ever really planned to marry her? "I really like you, Tulsa May. I've always thought you'd make somebody a good wife. Now I'm sure that one of these days some lucky fellow is going to fall head over heels in love with you."

She looked at him curiously for a moment before giving him a laughing reply. "He'd best not fall 'head over heels,' Jedwin. I think one clumsy person per couple is enough."

The rest of the afternoon's work passed without event. Tulsa May worked on the planting while Jedwin finished the box building on his own.

She shoveled the compost-mulched topsoil into Miss Mai-mie's wheelbarrow and was quickly filling the flower boxes beneath the window with it. "What's this?" she asked, holding up a coarse grain sack.

"It's Epsom salts," Jedwin told her. "Put a little dab in with each bulb you plant and it will make your leaves greener and your flowers brighter."

Tulsa May looked at him skeptically and then shrugged. "You are the expert."

Jedwin hesitated for a moment before nodding. "Yes, ma'am, I guess that I am."

Cheerfully, he continued his work sawing, hammering, and nailing. Tulsa May shoveled the dirt, planted bulbs, prattled incessantly about the future of the Briggs mansion flower boxes, and took occasional breaks to answer the shrill call of Miss Maimie from the house.

Finally they were finished.

"These boxes look really good against the windows," she said.

"I hope you don't expect Miss Maimie to agree with you."

Tulsa May giggled. "Even if she did, she'd never say so. I just want to brighten up her life a little. Sometimes I think she looks at life through spectacles made of gloom."

Jedwin nodded. "Why are you so kind to her? I can't say that I've ever heard her say a nice word about anybody."

Tulsa May shrugged. "I guess when it comes to Miss Maimie, I'm luckier than most."

The look of stunned disbelief on Jedwin's face was so comical, Tulsa May laughed out loud. "It's true," she insisted. "I have an advantage."

"I can't imagine what it might be."

She furrowed her brow in concentration as she sought the right words for explanation. "Most people find Miss Maimie's criticism hard to take, because they are not used to falling short of the standard. They go through life, generally living up to expectations. When Miss Maimie is critical, they are so surprised and hurt, it never occurs to them to question her right to make judgments.

"For myself," Tulsa May said. "I haven't lived up to anybody's standard since the day I was born. My parents wanted a boy. I wasn't. If T was a girl, I should be pretty. I wasn't. If I was not pretty, I should be graceful. I wasn't. If I was not graceful, I should be talented. I wasn't. If I was not talented, I should be sensible. I wasn't."

"You have some wonderful qualities, Tulsa May," Jedwin protested.

"I know that," she agreed. "But I wouldn't have if I hadn't questioned the standard that I was being asked to live up to." Tulsa May blew out a little puff of air as if the call had been close. “I sometimes look at Miss Foote at the school, and I see what could have happened to me. If I believed what other people think about me to be true, why I wouldn't think much of myself at all. I'd just be a shadow of a person, not ever deserving of happiness."

Tulsa May looked at Jedwin, her eyes shining with intelligence and empathy. "But I
questioned
their opinions," she told him quietly. "I
ignored
their judgments and decided that
God
made me the person that I am. It wasn't Miss Maimie's decision." She shrugged cheerfully. "Anyway, it's hard to hold
her
up as the example of contentment."

Jedwin chuckled, agreeing. "So you think we should just be ourselves?"

“I think we should each choose our own standards and rules. Your mother has chosen lo live by Miss Maimie's rules. But you can choose to live however you please."

Jedwin reached a soiled hand to raise Tulsa May's chin. "How did you get to be so wise?"

Tulsa May shrugged offhandedly and her eyes sparkled with humor. "I guess it was contemplating philosophy when I should have been learning where to put the demitasse spoons."

The two laughed together for a moment, then Tulsa May spoke again. This time her tone was more serious. "So what are you going to do about Mrs. Briggs?''

Jedwin's hand stilled. "I don't know what you mean."

Tulsa May patted his arm. "Nobody knows," she assured him quickly. "At least I don't think that they do. I figured it out on my own."

Jedwin's maple brown eyes glittered with coldness. "I don't know what you think that you are talking—"

"Mr. Panek told me about the leather pump pieces that you bought," Tulsa May interrupted. "And that apron . . . well, it's exactly like the one my father described seeing at Mrs. Briggs's house."

Jedwin hesitated. "Mrs. Briggs and I are friends."

Tulsa May's mouth widened to a broad gap-toothed grin. "That's what I thought."

Her obvious amusement angered Jedwin. “I don't care what your thoughts or assumptions might be. I will not hear a word against her."

Tulsa May's expression reflected her incredulity. "A word against her?" The young girl laughed with delight. "Why would I say a word against the only other person in this town who cares as little for Miss Maimie's opinion as I do?"

Jedwin couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. He sat staring at her until she flicked a trowel full of personally blended compost-mulched topsoil his way.

Jerking backward, Jedwin sat on his heels and brushed the dirt from the bib of his apron.

"I've always admired Mrs. Briggs," Tulsa May told him. "Though, truth to tell, I don't think I've ever shared even a word with her. But I always thought it was pretty special how she stayed right here in town and didn't so much as flinch, let alone bow her head, before your mother and Miss Maimie."

"Mrs. Briggs has tried to make the best of a bad situation," Jedwin said.

"I know. Even Papa admires her for that. I heard him tell Mama just yesterday that it takes two to break up a marriage."

"Your father's right. Although it certainly took him a while to come around to that conclusion."

Tulsa May grinned. "Papa's recent conversion to spiritually based exercise helped him reached that conclusion, I suspect."

Jedwin nodded in rueful agreement.

"So, do you love her?" she asked.

"What?"

"I said, do you love her?"

Looking back at his work, Jedwin began digging and planting, his jaw set tightly. "Tulsa May, you are a very bright girl, but there are things in this world that you just don't understand."

"You think I'm too young to understand about love?"

"No, not love, per se," Jedwin admitted. "I think you are too young to understand some of the problems that love can cause."

Tulsa May nodded sagely. "I'm sure you're right. I don't understand all of the problems. I just understand that you've seemed happier and freer the last few weeks than I've ever seen you before." She shrugged innocently. "I just thought that might mean you are in love."

Jedwin's long-suffering expression slowly melted to chagrin as he shook his head at the young woman.

"Miss Bruder, those bright brown eyes of yours see entirely too much."

Tulsa May's grin broadened. “Then you do love her?''

With a deep sigh, Jedwin nodded. "Yes, I love her."

Tulsa May sighed wistfully and her eyes looked dreamy. "I'm so happy for you. Of all the adults in town, I like you the best."

"Thank you." Jedwin gave the young girl a look of concern. "You do understand that this is not some fairy tale where everyone lives happily ever after."

Tulsa May's eyes popped open in surprise. "Why not?"

Jedwin wiped his brow on his sleeve and gazed off into the distance. "Real life just doesn't work out that way."

"Doesn't she love you?"

"Yes," Jedwin admitted. "I think that she does."

"Then what's the problem?"

Jedwin turned his eyes to Tulsa May, his mouth drawn into one thin line. "Mrs. Briggs is a divorced woman," he said.

Tulsa May waved away his concern. "Well, that's certainly easy enough to fix."

"How?" Jedwin asked.

"Why, you can marry her."

Chapter Seventeen

Cora hummed quietly as she stirred the gravy, feeling warm and smug and pleased to have Jedwin Sparrow at her house for supper. Looking up, she almost absently gave him a smile of pleasure before she caught sight of his face. Abruptly she stopped stirring.

"What is it?" she asked.

"I've been doing a lot of thinking," Jedwin began.

"You've made a decision about the farm." Admiration shone in her eyes.

Jedwin nodded. "I'm moving out there. I think if I can spend the winter making some major improvements on the grounds, come next spring it will be ready for a real crop."

Wiping her hands on her apron, Cora looked thoughtful. "You are really giving up the undertaking business completely?"

Jedwin nodded. He reached for her hand and gestured for her to take a seat beside him. "I'm not giving it up. I never chose it. I've always hated embalming," he said quietly. "I guess that's no secret to you."

She gave him a small smile of agreement.

"For years I tried to please my father by following in his footsteps." Jedwin shook his head. "But I couldn't. And Mama wasn't much help. She pushed me even harder than he did."

"Why did she do that?" Cora asked.

"She was scared, I guess," he answered. "You know, I think until the day he died Mama wasn't sure that he would keep us."

"Keep you?"

Jedwin nodded. "Mama was no great catch as a girl. Although she was young and pretty, my grandpa was far from prosperous. I don't think anyone expected her to marry well. Mama was ambitious and smart. And she set out to capture a man who could support her. My father could."

"And she captured him," Cora said.

Jedwin nodded. "I don't think she was ever even quite sure how she'd done it, and she worried all her life that her good fortune might just walk out of her life as easily as he'd walked in."

"Did your mother tell you that?"

Jedwin laughed humorlessly. "Not likely," he said. "I doubt if she would even admit it to herself. But I'm sure that's what she thought."

Taking her smaller hand in his own, Jedwin caressed her fingers, more for his comfort than her pleasure.

"She and my father never loved each other. Mama did tell me that. Of course, she didn't have to. It was very obvious."

"Did they argue?"

"Never," Jedwin answered. "Not a cross word was ever spoken between them." A wry grin warmed his face. "But then, they rarely ever spoke at all. The only things they ever talked about were the business and, of course, me. It was all they had in common."

Cora nodded. "The only things that they both loved?"

"I guess that's true," he said. "But I'm not sure that Mama understood that. I think that she was always afraid that if I failed him as a son, he would turn us out."

"Oh, surely not."

"Certainly he wouldn't have," Jedwin agreed. "Certainly he didn't. And I was a big disappointment to him in the business."

"You just didn't have the talent for it," Cora insisted.

"I just didn't have the stomach for it," Jedwin said more plainly. "I hate working with dead bodies. They are like empty discarded packages of people I once knew. And as for embalming procedures." Jedwin shook his head. "I get light-headed when I cut my own finger. Can you imagine me opening up a body to examine the organs for cause of death?"

"Oh, Jedwin." Cora reached out a hand and caressed the long straight jawline that was smooth and freshly shaven.

"I remember the morning that my father died," he told her quietly. "There was no one else to take care of the body. I knew that I would have to do it."

His intense brown eyes took on a wary, faraway glow.

Cora saw the pain in his eyes and squeezed his hand tightly.

"I dropped down on my knees beside that table." He looked straight at her, so openly, so honestly. "I'd never prayed in that room before or since, but I prayed that day. I knew that I had to prepare my father's body. And I begged God for the strength to do it."

Cora brought his hand to her lips and kissed him tenderly.

He looked up at her now, the intensity of his eyes almost pulling her within him, now that she knew its source.

"With a great deal of help from heaven, I managed to do justice to my father," he said. "More than justice," he admitted. "When I'd placed him in the casket and rolled him into the front parlor, I made a decision."

Jedwin lowered his eyes momentarily and then raised them again to hers. "I fixed up the room until it was perfect. Exactly as he would have done it himself," he said. "Then I told him that I loved him. And I swore I would never prepare another body again as long as I lived."

"Oh, Jedwin," Cora whispered.

The tears were running in rivulets down the side of her face. And Jedwin tried to tenderly erase them with his thumbs.

"I have kept my promise, Cora," he said. "And now I'm making another. I'm giving the business to Mama and I'm going back to the farm. It is where I've always wanted to be, and I do not intend to deprive myself any longer."

Cora was in his arms, holding him tightly. He feathered light gentle kisses in her hair. There was no passion in them, only tenderness. Her poor, brave, honorable Jedwin, she loved him so much. She felt so safe and warm in his arms. Would that it could last forever.

"What is that smell?" he asked suddenly.

Cora pulled from his grasp in momentary confusion as she sniffed the air.

"The gravy!" she cried as she jumped from his arms and ran to the stove.

The steaming white sauce had solidified in the bottom of the skillet and was now a large, very deeply browned gravy-cake.

"Oh no!" Cora exclaimed in dismay.

Jedwin laughed out loud. "It's all right, Cora. Your cooking is not the thing that attracts me most."

Cora awakened slowly, squinting at the faint glow of the lamp beside the bed. Jedwin sat beside her, fully awake. They'd given up on the gravy hours before. She smiled up at him. His chest was bare, as was the rest of him, she suspected. He'd propped a catalog on his knee and was using it as a writing desk for the paper and pen he was using.

"What are you doing?" she asked, her voice gravelly with sleep.

His smile warmed her as he bent down and laid a tiny kiss on the end of her nose. "I'm writing you a poem, Mrs. Briggs," he said. "Isn't that what swains are supposed to do?"

She grinned back at him and yawned, raising her arms high above her head and allowing the sheet to drop from her bared bosom to her waist.

Smiling invitingly at the man beside her, she laid her head against his naked chest. "I think we've gotten past the romance, Jedwin," she said.

"Oh no!" he insisted with feigned disapproval. "We will never be past the romance."

Cora smiled against the firm flesh that covered the muscled young abdomen. Lazily she began twirling the blond hair that grew there.

"Honestly, Jedwin," she said with exaggerated sincerity. "I do prefer having loving with you to listening to your poetry."

His smile turned into a naughty grin. "Honesty does not become you, Cora. Keep lying to me, it makes me feel better."

She laughed. "Oh well then," she said. "I much prefer your clever little rhymes to all those terrible, nasty things you do to me."

His grin broadened. "Terrible, nasty things?" he asked. "Why, Mrs. Briggs, you taught me everything that I know."

She punched him playfully and would have gladly progressed to a spirited wrestling match, but he stopped her.

"I want you to hear my latest effort," he insisted. "Now sit still and listen. Maybe you will hear something important."

"Oh all right," Cora agreed. Sitting up in the middle of the bed, she threw off the quilted covers and turned to sit cross-legged before him, naked.

Jedwin allowed himself a casual perusal of the woman before him. "You are trying to distract me, Mrs. Briggs," he accused.

"Yes," she admitted.

He shook his head firmly and grabbed the cotton bedsheet to drape around her modestly.

"First, listen to my poem," he said. "Then we can celebrate with our bodies."

Cora's expression was teasingly stubborn, but she nodded.

Looking down at the words he'd written, Jedwin bit his lip nervously and looked back at her. Immediately she sensed that this was not another "swain as dumb as a boar hog." A flicker of fear ran through her and she wanted suddenly to stop him, to not allow him to say the words.

Jedwin cleared his throat and began to speak.

"I love you more, Cora

Than many would dare.

You have given life purpose.

Of your past, I don't care.

We broke the rules

When I came to your bed.

Now, I want to atone.

I want us to wed."

As he finished, he raised his eyes to look into hers. It was a question. It was a proposal.

A lump of sorrow formed in the back of Cora's throat and she pulled the worn bedsheet more tightly around her. Oh, how she loved him. But she must be cruel.

"Don't be foolish, Jedwin. I will never marry you," she snapped.

Jedwin paled slightly, but swallowed his disappointment. He hadn't expected this to be easy. He had approached it wrong, he knew. He should have kept it more serious.

"I don't need a poem to say that I love you, Cora," he told her. "I do love you. I've told you that already."

Cora shook her head. "It's lust," she said. "You love my body, Jedwin."

He reached out and grabbed her. "Don't try to make it coarse and common," he said. "I love
you,
Cora. I love
you,
and I think I can tell the difference."

She pulled out of his grasp. "Don't love me, Jedwin," she said. "You will only be hurt."

Wrapping the sheet more closely around her, she rose from the bed and hurried behind the dressing screen.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"I'm getting dressed," she answered. "And you should, too."

"Cora, it's the middle of the night."

"Oh." There was a sneer in her voice. "I suppose that you were hoping for a little morning romp. Well, I am completely out of the mood. Just pull on your pants and go."

Jedwin was across the room in an instant. Jerking up the hinged screen in his hands, he threw it violently against the wall. "Don't hide from me, Cora. We are going to talk about this."

Clad in her muslin drawers, with one arm in her pleated chemise, which dangled around her neck only partially concealing her, Cora was furious.

"Not unless
I
say we are going to talk!" she yelled at him. "You are not my father or my husband. You are just the man I have loving with and that gives you no rights at all."

"Not even the right to love you?"

They stood staring at each other in silence. Both were breathing heavily and both faces flushed with emotion. Both were hurting.

Jedwin regained his balance first Gently reaching to her, he helped her get her right arm into the camisole and gently smoothed the material down her body, covering her from his sight.

The tenderness in his touch brought tears to her eyes, but she fought them.

"You mustn't love me, Jedwin," she whispered.

"Why not?" he asked. "And don't tell me it's because you don't love me, because I already know that you do."

Covering her face with her hands, she let the threatened tears erupt. "I've tried, Jedwin," she told him. "I've tried not to love you and not to show that I love you."

He wrapped his arms around her loosely, comfortingly, and pulled her back to the bed. Seating himself, he brought her into his arms and rocked her like a baby, cooing quietly with nonsensical words.

"I know you feel that you are a bad woman," he said. "This town has painted you as some kind of wicked sinner and you've begun to believe them."

"No, no, I haven't," she insisted.

"Then what else'.'" he asked. "All that talk about sin and rules. Good Lord, Cora, you talk more like an ax murderer than a divorcée."

"You don't understand."

"You're right," Jedwin admitted. "I don't understand. I admit we've broken the rules. But I want to marry you."

Cora dug her hands through her hair and shook her head.

"You cannot marry me and you shouldn't love me."

"Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because it's true, I know. I've already been through this once."

"Been through what?"

"This! This . . . this . . . when a man falls in love with the wrong woman."

Jedwin grabbed her chin and raised it to look at her. Her hair was in wild disarray.

"Tell me." He whispered the words, but they still had the ring of command. "Tell me about Luther."

"I thought you didn't care about Luther," she challenged.

"I don't. But I care about you. I care about every breath you've ever taken, every tear you've ever shed, every moment that you've spent without me. Some of those moments were spent with Luther Briggs. Tell me, Cora."

She looked up at him, unsure. "I never talk about it. I rarely ever think about it."

"Then tell it quickly and be done," he said.

She sighed heavily, biting her lip as she raised her tear-streaked face. "Luther Briggs never loved me," she said without emotion. "When he married me he was in love with another woman."

Jedwin's brow furrowed. Somehow he found it difficult to believe that any man could not be in love with Cora.

"Are you sure?"

She chuckled humorlessly. "Oh yes, very sure. He told me so himself."

"And you married him anyway?"

"I was already married to him. He didn't tell me until our marriage was already over."

"Then why did he marry you?"

"To please Miss Maimie." Her tone was no longer sad, it was angry. "Isn't that why everyone in this town does what they do? To please Miss Maimie."

Jedwin shook his head in disbelief. "A man doesn't marry a woman to please his mother."

Cora raised a skeptical eyebrow. "I thought you were planning to marry Tulsa May Bruder?''

He flushed lightly. "But I'm not marrying her now, I'm marrying you."

"Jedwin, Tulsa May Bruder
is
the woman that you should many."

"Not if I don't love her."

"Then you
should
love her. That's why I wanted to be your mistress, so you would see that I am not fit for your love. Tulsa May or someone like her would deserve you."

"Tulsa May would suit my mother and this town just fine. But she wouldn' t suit me.'' He held on to her tightly.”You say Luther loved another. Would you have me marry Tulsa May and do the same?"

"That's what I'm trying to avoid!"

"You could avoid it by marrying me."

The fight went out of Cora and she lay limply against him. "I can't let you marry me, Jedwin," she said.

"Why not?"

"Because I love you and I want you to be happy. You could never be happy with me."

"I am happy with you."

"You are now. Now, no one knows. But they will know, Jedwin, and they will disapprove."

"I don't care about that."

"Yes you do, Jedwin. You need friendship, you need approval. It's something that you've always craved. Why else have you tried so hard to please your mother, to please your father? If you marry me, Jedwin, no one will be pleased. You will be an outcast."

"But I will have you," he whispered.

"It won't be enough."

"It will be enough for me," he said.

But she knew that it wasn't.

The morning sunlight was shining through the windows of the tiny upstairs study where Amelia took care of her book work. She was humming.

The dress she wore was a pale blue organdy that hadn't been out of her closet in ten years. She'd had a difficult time lacing her corset tight enough to wear it, but the effect was worth the effort. She felt ten years younger. She felt giddy. Although she attempted to keep her mind on her work, time after time her thoughts strayed to Haywood Puser. It had been so long since a man had paid court to her. And she was sure she had never been paid court to by a man like Haywood Puser.

"Haywood." She said the name aloud to hear it on her lips. She liked the sound of it. She liked it very much.

With a tittering little laugh, she wondered if a trip to a regular dentist could have been as enlightening as having a tooth pulled by Mr. Puser. She definitely doubted it.

Seating herself dutifully at her desk, she sorted the piles of papers before her into separate stacks of receivables, payables and receipts. Allowing herself to be distracted, she gazed almost sightlessly for several minutes out the front window at the cold gray day. Winter was clearly upon them now, but she had never felt warmer.

With a grudging sigh, she pulled out the ledger and began her painstaking paperwork. As she carefully recorded the numbers in the appropriate columns, her mind continued to mull the events of the previous evening.

She had allowed him to eat supper with her. He'd teased her foot under the table. They'd talked business and the weather and the future. And for dessert he had kissed her breathless.

"Let me stay the night, Mellie," he whispered hotly against her neck.

"Absolutely not!" she said, with mock chagrin that he had even asked. "Mr. Puser, you forget yourself."

He'd grinned down at her. "Mellie honey, you make me forget myself."

A wide, blushing smile spread across Amelia's face in remembrance as she recorded the next item in her register.

The movement of her pencil stopped abruptly. She stared at a small receipt.

Her face paled and a bitter, angry cold seeped into her veins.

"Oh please, no," she whispered with quiet desperation.

Slowly, she rose to her feet. As she looked out on the cold winter day, her world seemed now almost as bleak as death itself. She felt old. She felt very old and foolish.

Picking up the paper, she calmly carried it out of the room. Walking slowly and deliberately Amelia made her way down the stairs. Her face was blank of expression. Her head was held high with forced pride. She listened to her own footfalls on the stairways as if they were sounding a dirge.

She heard him before she saw him. He was whistling.
Whistling.
A happy man, whistling in celebration of his latest conquest.

Amelia's jaw hardened as she stepped into the embalming room. He was straightening up one of the cupboards. His back was to her as he squatted precariously, whistling his cheerful tune.

She stood watching him for a moment. Silently, solemnly watching as she measured each breath in her chest as if it were her last From the comer of her eye she caught sight of the broom and she reached for it. Holding it in her hands as if it were a foreign object, she stared at it sightlessly for a moment, before her gaze turned once again to the man who had deceived her.

Fury gave her strength. She raised the broom high above her in a dangerous arc and brought the tightly knitted lengths of straw forcefully upon Haywood Puser's head.

"What the—" he cried, startled.

The force of the blow knocked him to the floor and he lay there momentarily staring at Amelia with stunned disbelief. When she raised the broom to hit him again, he sprang into action.

"Dammit, Mellie, what's the matter with you!" he yelled as he rolled to the left, scrambling to his knees.

"You liar!" she screamed. "You low-down, scheming womanizer!" She punctuated her words with wild swipes of the broom to his head and shoulders.

Haywood managed to get his arm up to ward off the worst of the blows, but he still felt the brunt of her fury.

"What is this about?" he asked her, completely confused and becoming downright angry. "Are you
crazy"?"

"I must be!" Amelia screamed back at him. "To allow a carouser like you to kiss me."

"Carouser?" Haywood shook his head. "Good Lord, Mellie, are you going to always take on so about a little kissing? You enjoyed it as much as I did."

With a furious cry, Amelia raised the broom to strike again, but this time, Haywood grabbed it. With little effort he pulled it out of her grasp and threw it across the room, where it clattered loudly in the silence between them.

"Have you taken leave of your senses?"

"I've just got them back," she assured him. "The moment I saw this!" she said, slapping the crumpled piece of paper into his hand. "Now try to deny what is written there in black and white."

Haywood was totally flabbergasted. With a good deal of curiosity he looked down at the paper in his hand.

"What is it?" he asked.

"You
know
what it is!" Amelia's voice was loud enough to be considered a screech.

"I know
what
it is, Mellie," he said with the last of his patience. Quickly looking over the handwritten notice, he brought his gaze back to hers. "It's a bill of sale for some pump part," he said, "a foot valve."

"I've
got no broken pump!" she spat furiously.

Haywood shrugged. "Maybe it's a mistake."

"It's a mistake, all right," she said. "And
you
made it. I want you out of here by this afternoon."

She turned her back on him, intending to make a haughty exit. Haywood stared at her for only a minute before reaching out to grab her arm.

"Don't you touch me, you . . . you . . . libertine."

Haywood dropped her arm immediately and his eyes widened in surprise. "Libertine? Good God, Mellie, I just kissed you, dammit. And I must say you don't have a very high opinion of yourself."