Courting Miss Hattie (13 page)
"How are your children?" she asked as she again shifted away from him.
"Children? Oh, they're all right, I suppose." He smiled quickly as if a new idea had just proposed itself. "Lula really did the raising of the children, you know," he said gravely. His voice was amazingly close, and she skittered another inch away. "I'm a fair hand at teaching the boys what they need to know—plowing and working and such. But
them
girls, they sure do need a woman's hand, and that's for sure, Miss Hattie."
"They seem like lovely girls," she said, trying to maintain the facade of simple communication. "I was especially taken with
Cyl
and little
Ada
. Such a lively twosome."
"To lively,"
Ancil
said, shaking his head. "Mary Nell tries to keep them straight, but I swear every time you look up, they're off
somewheres
a'playing
."
"But they are children. They're supposed to play."
He nodded. "Once the day's work is finished and their chores done, I've nothing against it."
Hattie continued to lean away, but was interested in his views on childrearing. "I understand
Ada
has a collection of paper dolls," she said.
He frowned at her, seeming surprised. "Don't know where she got them," he said with a shrug. "She had an old cornhusk doll someplace, but I think Buddy was sick on it or something, and Mary Nell threw it in the fireplace last winter."
Ancil
scooted the last quarter inch possible, and his thigh sat squarely against Hattie's.
"Did Mary Nell make her a new doll?" she asked, determined to ignore his shocking behavior.
He shook his head, chuckling. "Now Mary Nell is a good girl, but she
don't
waste her time on anything but the necessities. She'd no more make a doll than she'd take up crochet. There's a good bit of work for a woman on the farm—not much time for foolishness."
Hattie meant to tell him that a child's doll was not foolishness, but he set his hand that held the reins on his thigh next to hers and slipped his arm off the back of the buggy seat so that it touched her.
Leaning forward and to her right, Hattie found her position was so precarious, she grabbed the hinges on the buggy top and positioned her feet carefully to maintain her balance. As if on cue,
Ancil
hit a rut, and it was only his grasp of her waist that kept her from a headlong plunge onto the road.
"Whoa there, Miss Hattie." He pulled her snugly to his side. "You best stay here right close where I can keep you safe."
"Thank you," she said, shaken by her near calamity. Realizing that
Ancil
had not released her but kept his arm proprietarily around
her,
she sat up straight and spoke with a hint of hauteur. "I am perfectly all right, Mr. Drayton. You may release me now."
His grin was wide, his chuckle lazy. "Now, Miss Hattie, once a fellow's got his gal in
a snuggle
, you don't expect him to just let her go that quick, do you?" He punctuated his remark with a rather too friendly squeeze.
Her face paling, then suffusing with color, Hattie was not sure quite what to do.
"Do you recollect when we
was
younguns
?" he asked her.
She stiffened more, if that were possible, appreciating memories of her childhood even less than his arm around her.
"We sure done some wild things in them days," he continued, chuckling at his own memories.
"'Course, you didn't do much too wild, but we sure was into teasing you."
She squirmed slightly to try to get him to loosen his grip on her waist, but to no avail.
"You
was
a funny little thing in them days," he said. "Almost like a
growed
woman dressed up like a child. We sure did give you a lot of grief, I'm thinking."
"I don't recall," she lied primly. "It was a long time ago."
"It surely was. It's funny, but I remember it like it was yesterday. All us boys playing tag and rope-the-goat and you girls sitting round giggling over button-button."
It was not exactly how Hattie remembered it, but she declined to comment.
"Were you sweet on me then, Miss Hattie?" he asked her, his face uncomfortably close and his smile unreasonably smug.
"I certainly was not."
"I thought you
was
. Yes, I thought you
was
plumb taken with me. But then, a lot of them gals
was
back then, afore I lost my hair."
"Mr. Drayton, I'd like for you to release me," she said, her voice carefully controlled.
"Hattie-
hon
, you need to loosen up a bit," he told her, ignoring her complaint. "It's a pretty night, we got a nice big old moon up there, and we're due some sparking." He squeezed her again. "Ain't
nobody
to see and none to know."
"I believe I am already sufficiently loose," she said.
Ancil
laughed loudly. "Now that, Miss Hattie, I ain't heard. But I'm willing to test it out." He pulled her tightly against him and leaned down in an attempt to kiss her.
She squealed in terror. "Don't you
dare!
"
"It's just a little
smoochy-smoch
, Miss Hattie. There ain't
no
call to be getting yourself all riled."
"I have not given you permission to kiss me, Mr. Drayton."
If his scowl was any indication,
Ancil
was clearly displeased. "These days,
a man don't
need to ask permission," he said. "Everybody knows that courting couples kiss. Why, how else are they going to be able to tell if they like each other?"
"Prior to marriage, a kiss might be appropriate," Hattie
said,
her chin high. "However, I do not believe any dalliance at this point in our courtship is proper." Her words were as cold as icicles and had the desired effect.
Moving away,
Ancil
flicked the reins sharply. The horse immediately quickened its pace.
"At your
age,
Miss Hattie, I'm thinking you'd be better off trying to be pleasing than proper."
She turned to him, her mouth open in shock.
"You'd best do some thawing out," he added. "A bit of kissing ain't going to ruin you."
* * *
The moon came out from behind a cloud, making the white paint on the Turpin house glow with silvery highlights. Harmon
Leege
approached the house by the road, but before he reached the yard, he veered to the left, into the woods.
It was well after
Reed was not so bad. Harm had finally had to admit that. The time they'd spent together in
Helena
and working at Miss Hattie's place had taught him that the man was fair and could be trusted. The way he treated Miss Hattie was surely evidence that he would be neither cruel nor thoughtless as a husband. Even his sense of humor encouraged Harm. A
man
who was willing to enjoy the vagaries of life, rather than set himself against them, would find a pleasant future.
Harm's own future seemed infinitely
more bleak
. He had known from the time he was small enough to walk upright under the buckboard that he was "trash." Worthless white
trash,
not fit to consort with decent folks. Hearing it over and over, he'd come to accept it as a part of himself, like his hair and eye color. But that was before he'd known what acceptance meant, known what he would have to learn to live without.
He couldn't stop the sigh that blew through him like grief. He pushed away from the tree and turned to go,
then
he stopped. Like
Lot
's wife, he couldn't resist. He looked back and was lost. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he gave the call of the mockingbird,
then
waited. His eyes focused on the upper window, he gave the call again, and this time his message was answered.
A slim delicate hand whisked the curtains away, and Bessie Jane Turpin looked down at him. Her hair was tousled from sleep, but her eyes were opened wide, revealing both surprise and fear. They stood staring at each
other,
able to see perfectly clearly, yet the distance between them was far more than could
be
measured in miles. They watched, waited. Finally, Harm turned, glanced back once,
then
walked into the night.
CHAPTER
8
F
rom the moment Reed put his plow to the earth, he knew he was right. The blade cut through the blue prairie grass and turned the topsoil, revealing water just inches below the surface. As he sliced through the thick layer, the disruption created a thick mud soup that was ideal for rice.
"This is it," he told Hattie. "If I had any doubts, they're all flying in the breeze this morning."
Monday had dawned warm and bright with just a hint of wind. Reed had been so
anxious,
he'd barely managed to gulp down his breakfast of grits and eggs. But he did take three biscuits with him before he hitched the mules to the plow.
As he headed out to the field, he chanced to look back. Hattie stood on the porch watching him go. She looked more than a little disappointed and very left out. "It's your rice field, Miss Hattie!" he called to her. "Don't you want to come down there with me? Watch the first cut in the soil?"
Her eyes lit up momentarily until discipline and good judgment overruled. "I've got chores to do yet this morning," she said. "I'll be down a little later."
Reed stopped and gazed at her, considering.
"I said I'd come down later!" she called more loudly, apparently assuming poor hearing had caused his hesitance.
Looking at the mules hitched to the plow and ready to go, he said to
himself
as much as to them, "It just wouldn't be right for Miss Hattie not to be there." He led the team to a shade tree and started back to the house.
"With both of us working," he said as he stepped up onto the porch, "we'll get through your chores in a gnat's age."
Hattie's smile spread delightfully across her face at his words, and was followed by laughter when he added, "But I am
not
milking that goat!"
"Guard your tongue, Reed Tyler," she said. "If you hurt
Myrene's
feelings, there'll be nothing but sour-milk biscuits for a month."
Reed said he'd take the hogs and chickens if Hattie milked
Myrene
and handled the house and garden.