WILD OATS (23 page)

With a strangled sound of fury, Amelia turned to him and raised her fist like a drunken cowboy in a saloon fight. Haywood caught it easily and held it, along with her other arm, firmly to her side.

"I don't know what is going on here, Mellie," he said. "But I intend to find out."

"Why don't you just admit it?" she said coldly, her face only inches from his. "Last night you were sweet-talking me and kissing me. But you've been spending most of your time with that big-bosomed divorcée!"

Haywood was so taken aback at her words that he immediately released her.

Taking full advantage, Amelia rushed out of the room and up the stairs. Tears were rolling down her cheeks by the time she made it to her bedroom door. She ignored them as resolutely as she did the pain that had lodged deep inside her.

Letting herself inside her room, she threw herself across the bed and bawled like a young girl with a broken heart.

She hated him! She hated everyone. She hated her father and Big Jim and Haywood. She hated Miss Maimie. None of them had ever loved her. No one could love her. She could never be loved. Her tears gathered in a soggy pool on the lace bedspread beneath her. Only James Edwin loved her, she decided, and that was because it was his duty.

Her intent to wallow in her misery was short-lived for the door to her room burst open and banged loudly against the wall.

With a startled gasp, Amelia sat up immediately. “How dare you!" she accused furiously. "You will leave this room immediately."

"I will leave, Mellie, when I've had my say." As he walked farther into the room, Amelia hurried to her feet. She certainly couldn't be lying on the bed with a man in her room. And she would not allow herself to be at a disadvantage with this womanizer.

She wanted to keep her distance, but Haywood snaked an arm around her waist and pulled her close to him.

"Let me go," she ordered immediately. The smell, the feel, the warmth of him was already too familiar.

"Mellie Sparrow, you are the most disagreeable woman I have ever met in my life," he said quietly. "And if I had any sense at all, I'd let you stew in your own juices for the rest of your life."

His mouth, only inches from hers, seemed suddenly warm and tempting. In her unerring memory she could almost feel the tickle of his beard on her cheeks and throat. It was her own desire that frightened her as she pressed herself more firmly against the wall to get away from him.

"Do you really think that with all the misery you put me through, I'd still pursue you if I had another woman on the side?" He shook his head doubtfully. "Listen, gal, let me tell you right now, you have greatly overestimated your charms."

"Oh!"

"Now don't go getting all insulted," he said, reaching out to catch the hand that she raised with the intent to slap him. "I'm just a man who believes in one woman at a time. Since my wife died, there have been a few, Mellie, I admit it. But never two at once. At my age, I've got neither the time nor the constitution for it."

"You fixed her pump," Amelia insisted, her voice rough and scratchy from the tears she'd shed.

"Whose pump?"

"Cora Briggs's pump," she snapped. "Reverend Bruder said a man had been there and was working on her pump. Now I've got a bill of sale for the parts."

Haywood raised a curious eyebrow.

"If that's not enough," Amelia added, her lip trembling with the revelations, "the preacher said the man had a gray ticking mechanic's apron. I made one like that for James Edwin for his birthday three years ago. It's hanging on the inside of the basement door. That is,
if you
put it back where you found it."

She pushed against him ineffectively, but Haywood felt the strength of her anger. "You borrowed my son's apron," she accused. "And you bought parts in his name to fix a pump for your little lightskirt, your fancy piece, your . . . your divorced woman!"

Haywood stepped back from her and looked into her tear-stained face long and thoughtfully. "Well, I'll be damned." He chuckled lightly.

"What are you laughing about?" Amelia was hoarse with fury.

Haywood looked down into her eyes and raised a wary eyebrow. "Well, Mellie," he said. "I could tell you, but I doubt you would find it as amusing as I do."

Leaning forward then, not touching her anywhere but on her lips, he kissed her, slowly, languidly, totally unconcerned for the complaints she uttered against his mouth.

"Mellie honey," he said as he stepped away from her. "I've never been within ten feet of Cora Briggs. We haven't even shared so much as a lingering howdy-do. I'd like for you to believe that, but if you don't, well—"

He turned to leave and Amelia watched him walk out of the room, her heart weighed with a heaviness of sorrow. He sounded so sincere. Could she believe him? She wanted to believe him. But what about the evidence? Amelia ran out to the hallway.

"If you didn't do it, then who did?" she asked him from the top of the stairs.

He looked back at her thoughtfully, as if considering his reply. "You look right pretty in that little blue dress, Mellie," be said.

Momentarily distracted, Amelia looked down at the brightly colored dress she'd donned this morning. The dress she'd donned for Haywood Puser, the new man in her life.

The new man that she trusted.

As Haywood turned once again to go, the cobwebs dissolved in Amelia's mind and suddenly she saw everything clearly. "James Edwin," she whispered in disbelief.

With the cold weather fixing to set in, Cora was determined to empty the ash bin on the stove. Several times she'd thought to ask Jedwin to do it, but when he was around she could never remember. Now she was glad. It was best not to get any more dependent on him than she already was. Besides, a lone woman "getting her ashes hauled" by a handsome young single man was becoming a bawdy cliche.

Sliding a wooden crate under the floor skirting of the stove, she carefully covered the surrounding area with an old sheet. If she actually dropped the pan, the sheet wouldn't be much help. But if she only spilled a bit of ashes, it would be a lifesaver.

The room wasn't just chilly, it was downright cold. She'd let the fire go out last night and hadn't lit it all day. She wanted the coals good and dead. She could not risk a fire. Carefully easing the pan out of its grooves, she found it difficult to keep her mind on her task.

Jedwin Sparrow had asked her to marry him. He wanted to live out on his grandfather's farm and raise wheat, oats, and flowers, and have her to be his wife, his partner, his helpmate. Tears pooled in Cora's eyes. There was nothing that she wanted more.

It was the life that she had always envisioned for herself when she'd lived in the Methodist Home. And if she were free to choose, he was the man she wanted to share it with. But it could never be.

Gently, Cora set the nearly overflowing ash pan into the crate.

It was strange that she rarely blamed Luther for her problems. He was certainly not blameless. He was weak and disloyal and a liar. She should still hate him. But she realized that she didn't. He had broken the rules of society, deliberately, knowingly. And like mqst culprits he'd assumed that no one would ever suffer for it but himself.

Jedwin wanted to believe the same.

She had tried desperately to make him understand. To make him see the truth as it really was. But he would not. Perhaps he
could
not. Maybe a person had to live through disaster before fully understanding.

Cora Briggs
had
lived through it. She had done nothing wrong in her marriage to Luther. Waking each morning with a smile on her face, she had only one ambition: to make a peaceful, happy home for her husband. She had done everything in her power to be a good, loyal, and dutiful wife. It was all she had wanted. In those cold, lonely days with Pa and later in the pristine politeness of the good Methodists, she had longed for only one thing—a home.

She had worked hard for her home, and if life were fair, she should have lived happily ever after. But life was never fair. She'd learned by experience that the rain sometimes fell harder on the just. When rules were bent the innocent as well as the guilty were punished.

In memory she could see him again. Standing so tall and handsome next to the door, his black hair slicked down with sweet-smelling pomade and his form as handsome as any man she'd ever seen.

"I never meant to hurt you," Luther had told her sorrowfully on that last day of their life together. "I really thought that it would work." He shook his head in disbelief at the misery that had come to pass. "You would never know about her, and she would never know about you. And my mother would be happy and none would be the wiser."

"But I am wiser," Cora had answered, her voice as cold as any territory winter. She hadn't slept in days and her eyes were red and swollen from hours of tears. “I am wiser now than I ever wanted to be. I would not wish such wisdom on another person."

"Oh Cory." His eyes pleaded for forgiveness, but it wasn't in her then.

"Get away from me, Luther," she said. "Leave this house today. Leave and go to
her."

"I am so sorry, Cory," he whispered.

"You should be," she said, giving no quarter. "Now go to the woman you should have never left and try to make up to her for what yon have done.'' Cora looked away and bravely raised her chin to face the loneliness of her future. "Your children have the only chance of happiness in this," she said quietly. "I won't take that away from them."

He'd walked away then. Leaving her with a house of her own, a shiny new bicycle, and a reputation she didn't deserve but could never live long enough to overcome.

Cora sighed as she covered the crate of ashes with a damp towel to keep them from scattering in the wind. Her heart was as heavy as the fully loaded crate.

Was Luther happy now? It was a question she rarely asked herself. In truth, she hoped that he was. He had given up his fortune, his home, his heritage, even his mother, for the woman that he loved. You could almost admire a man for that.

She did. And she admired Jedwin who was willing to do the same. But it was too big a sacrifice and she was not going to allow him to throw his life away on a disastrous marriage. She loved him too much.

Dragging the heavy crate to the doorway, Cora stopped to pull on her coat and scarf. She was hot from her labors and hated the warm weight of the coat, but stepping outside, damp, in the cold air was simply asking for trouble. And although the diphtheria was no longer a threat, Cora couldn't risk even a head cold. She was a woman alone, she reminded herself. There was no one to care for her, not now, not ever.

The air was crisp and cold as she stepped outside with only a light wind blowing a chill through her clothes. She could taste the moisture in the air and predicted that there would be snow before morning. The scent of the afternoon was flavored with wood smoke as the chimneys of each house added a bit of gray to the sky.

Cora made her way to the shed where she retrieved her shovel and the wheelbarrow. The latter was burdened with a wheel as creaky as hundred-year-old bones and a large rust hole in one corner of the barrow, but it would hold a crate of ashes, Cora was sure.

She hadn't been able to convince Jedwin that it would ruin him to marry her, so she had to think of some way to discourage Jedwin from
wanting
to marry her.

It was too late for the usual discouragements, she admitted to herself. He already knew she was a regular for bathing. She hid no horrible flaws beneath her clothing. And he didn't care that she wasn't the best cook in town. He said that he loved her hair, although it was frequently untidy. And he'd described her backside as generous rather than broad.

Cora shook her head thoughtfully. If women spent such an amount of their time working on ways to draw men to them, then surely there must be equally effective ways of pushing them away.

She loaded the crate of ashes on the wheelbarrow, stopping to scoop out a bucketful that she left near the door. If it did snow tonight, she'd sprinkle them on her back step.

Her thoughts still far away, Cora rolled the crate of ashes out to her big prized pecan. She'd lay a thin circle of ashes around the base of the tree. Ashes were an old Indian remedy for keeping the bugs off nut trees. While fancy solutions could now be purchased for insect control, ashes were not only cheaper but better.

What could she do to drive Jedwin away? she wondered. She could claim not to love him. But he'd already said that he knew that she did. She could act shrewish and difficult. But with
his
mother, Cora thought wryly, he was probably used to that.

When her circle of ashes was spread neatly and evenly beneath the tree, Cora propped her shovel once more against the side of the wheelbarrow and started back across the yard.

The rest of the ash pan contents would be sprinkled upon the garden. This was a cautious and careful procedure. A shovelful of ashes poured over a straight line, downwind. A few ashes could add lime to the soil, enriching it and protecting it from insects. Too many ashes would kill the ground, making it unfit to grow even the sturdiest of weeds. She smiled to herself. Mrs. Millenbutter would have described it as balance.