The Scent of Jasmine (22 page)

Twenty-one

When Alex was fourteen, he had lusted after a girl who lived a few miles from them, but she wouldn’t so much as look at him. One day he’d hidden in the bushes and jumped out at her. When she still would have nothing to do with him, he’d asked her why not. She told him that he was too pretty, that he’d never be faithful to a woman, so she wanted nothing to do with him. Despondent and angry at the unfairness of her accusation, Alex had gone home to his father and told him everything. Mac listened in sympathy, then said that women had ways of hurting a man that were worse than anything a sword or a pistol could do. At the time, Alex had thought that was absurd, but in the last three days with Cay, he’d found out what his father had been talking about.

For days now, Cay hadn’t spoken to Alex or touched him. The day that he’d shaved, Alex had been sent away to hunt, so he hadn’t seen Cay until that evening. While he’d been following deer trail through the thick vegetation on the shore, half running the whole way so he’d get to where the boat docked as early as possible, he’d planned what he’d say to her. He imagined conversations, all of them ending with Cay’s falling into his arms and “forgiving” him for being handsome. The thought of what their argument was about always made him smile.

Sometimes his imagined conversations were angry. He thought of telling her how unfair and unjust what she’d said to him was. She would then agree with him and run to him.

Other times he thought of apologizing to her, saying he was sorry for not having revealed to her . . . And that’s where he got stumped. What was he sorry about? When they were in old man Yates’s barn, should he have told her that, by the way, under his mess of itchy hair he wasn’t ugly? Or should he have told her when they were dancing in the store they’d broken into? Or on the night they first made love?

The truth—and Alex knew it well—was that he had purposefully let her think he was ugly and old. In fact, there had been more than once when he’d said something like, “Your young eyes can see better than mine.” Or “You’re younger, you do it.”

And then there was Grady. If Alex were honest with himself, he’d been jealous of all the things Cay had said about Grady being so very good to look at. According to her, angels were jealous of Grady’s looks. Or, in her words, “Jamie’s beauty.” It had been all Alex could do to keep his mouth shut when she said those things. Five minutes after they met Grady, Alex had wanted to shave. He knew he was better-looking and younger than Grady, and his impulse was to show her that, but something had held him back.

He knew what it was. He wanted to be sure that she liked him even though she thought the worst of him. Since Alex was a baby he’d had people speak of his looks. Women said what a pretty child he was, and men said to his father, “Handsome lad you have there.” When Alex was older, his looks had caused problems with females. They seemed to either throw themselves at him or, as the girl he liked did, want nothing to do with him.

It was in the new country of America that his looks had brought him luck. He’d always believed that it was his good looks, combined with his skill with horses, that had let him into the rich society of the upper class of Charleston. And it was because he was there that he’d met Lilith. He knew that she would never have looked at him if he’d been ugly. That a woman of her extreme beauty was attracted to someone like him had always shocked him. Later, when they were in love and had been able to spend time alone together, she’d confided in him that she was poor, and little more than a servant to a rich old woman. She’d also explained that she couldn’t accept one of the proposals from a plantation boy, because his family would expect her to have a fortune, but she had none. And she’d even admitted that, yes, Alex’s good looks had been what first attracted her to him.

Alex had been so in love with her, so dazzled by her beauty, that he said he understood. At the time, he felt that he did. It was only after he met Cay and realized that she saw him as old and ugly, and as a possible murderer, that he grew to like the idea of staying that way to her. Whether she did or did not like him was based solely on
him,
on Alex, not on what she assumed about him based on how he looked. That she’d come to . . . like, if not love, him without ever seeing his face, had been wonderful.

Yes, great for him, but the problem was that it didn’t seem to have been so good for
her.
So maybe it was true that he’d smiled a bit when she’d mentioned his age. And maybe he’d even laughed—inside, certainly not where she could see him—when she talked endlessly about how handsome Grady was.

And, true, maybe Alex had been so interested in his own side of it all, that he hadn’t given a real thought to how Cay was going to react when she found out that he hadn’t, well, been honest with her. The question now was how to lie his way out of it all.

All day long he thought of everything he could imagine to get back into her good graces. There were even a few minutes when he considered telling her the truth, that he’d made a big mistake and would she please forgive him. But he soon put that idea out of his head. Women liked men to be strong, and groveling and begging for forgiveness would never work. Although . . . he remembered that he’d apologized to her before and it had worked. But this was more serious than that time—and back then he’d not had the ultimate solution: kisses.

At the end of the day, when he saw the camp, he breathed a sigh of relief. Soon he’d be in the tent with her, and he’d pull her into his arms and make such sweet love to her that he’d never have to say a word. He’d
show
her he was sorry for anything he’d done to her, and that would solve everything. He’d make love to her with such tenderness that she’d forget all about what had happened between them. There would be no need for words, and certainly not for apologies.

By the time he got to the camp and had tied the deer carcass into a tree, he was smiling. No doubt Cay would be just as glad to make up the argument as he was. In fact, he’d learned a long time ago that he could use his looks to get ’round women. All he had to do was kiss the back of a woman’s hand while looking up at her with half-closed eyes, and she’d forgive him anything. If he left her waiting for two hours while he ran a race, what did it matter? She’d forgive him. If he didn’t show up for dinner with her family because he was arranging the next day’s races, she forgave him. The most he’d had to do was kiss a woman’s neck a few times. Neck kisses always made a woman forgive him for anything.

Except Lilith, he thought as he tied the rope holding the carcass up. Lilith didn’t put up with anything from Alex. He’d stood her up only once, and the next day he saw her on the arm of another man, laughing at whatever he said, and she smiled happily at Alex when she saw him. That she hadn’t been upset, hadn’t even seemed to care that he’d missed their date, had made him never be late again.

So now he knew that Cay would be angry. He knew her temper, so he expected some unpleasantness, but he’d kiss her back into a good mood.

Feeling confident in his thoughts, he removed his sweaty shirt and crawled into the tent. He could see Cay’s form asleep on the far side. She’d put a roll of canvas between the two blanket beds, and even a small crate, but Alex silently moved them away, and snuggled down beside her. He reached his hand out, lightly touched her shoulder, and put his face to her neck to start kissing.

Everything happened at once! Alex realized that the hairy neck he put his lips to was not Cay’s, and the recipient awakened with a scream of horror. It was Tim who was in the tent with Alex, not Cay.

The boy yelled, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” and nearly knocked the tent down as he fought his way out.

The others were awakened by the noise and came out of their tents. Grady had a loaded pistol in his hand, and Eli had a big butcher knife. When Cay came out of Eli’s tent, she looked at Alex with an expression of amusement.

“He tried to kiss me!” Tim yelled, stepping away from Alex and looking at him in disgust.

“I did no such thing,” Alex said as he grabbed his shirt and put it back on. “I was pulling a blanket over myself and I fell forward. If Tim wants to think that I was kissing him, that’s his own fantasy. Maybe he’s been alone too long.”

Alex refused to meet Cay’s eyes while he made up this lie.

“Tim, I think you should get back in the tent and let us sleep,” Mr. Grady said.

“I don’t want to sleep with
him,
” the boy said. “And I don’t see why I have to change tents anyway. I was fine with Eli.”

“You need to let
me
get some sleep,” Eli said. “Your snoring is enough to scare the gators. Young Cay here sleeps like a baby, and I need the peace he gives me. Let Alex take on your noises for a few nights.”

If Alex’d had any doubts that Eli and Grady knew Cay was female, Eli’s words would have ended it. Alex looked at Grady, but he wouldn’t meet his eyes. It was obvious that they knew of the fight—maybe not the cause—but they knew of Cay’s anger, and Eli had given her an excuse to get away from Alex.

For a moment, Alex debated whether he should admit the truth. If they all—except Tim, of course—knew what was going on, why couldn’t he say it out loud? But he couldn’t do that to Cay. He couldn’t admit that the two of them had been lovers. It wasn’t good for people to know that for sure, with all doubt removed. And, also, there was self-preservation. If they knew about Cay, they must know who Alex was. He didn’t want to have to sit around a campfire and answer questions about what had happened to him in Charleston.

“You keep your hands off of me!” Tim ordered Alex while looking from him to Cay, as though he wanted to say that there was something “not right” between the two of them. Grady wouldn’t meet the boy’s eyes.

“I think we should all get some rest,” Mr. Grady said. “And, Tim, if you want to sleep outside with the mosquitoes, that’s all right with me.” Turning, he went back into his tent.

Cay was smiling. She seemed to be enjoying Tim’s anger and the look of consternation on Alex’s too-handsome face. She gave an exaggerated yawn and looked at Eli. “Shall we go back in and get some sleep?” She smiled at Alex. “Good night, brother. I hope some bug doesn’t eat away that pretty face of yours. It would be a shame to mar such pulchritude.”

“Huh?” Tim asked when Cay was inside the tent. “What did he say?”

Eli was chuckling. “Nothing that was meant for you. Now go to bed, boy, and try not to keep Alex awake.” He went into the tent after Cay.

When they were alone, Tim looked at Alex in warning. “You touch me again and I’ll . . . I’ll . . .”

Alex gave him such a hard look that Tim didn’t finish his sentence.

With one more suspicious look, Tim went inside the tent.

Alex was tempted to stay outside the rest of the night, but a mosquito bit him on the neck and as he slapped at it, he entered the tent. Tim was already asleep, and Alex heard what Eli meant when he referred to Tim’s snoring. The boy made a wheezing sound when he drew breath in, and it came out in a high-pitched whistle. At first, the sound made Alex smile. He’d been hearing it since they’d started the trip, but he’d thought it was a night bird. Now that he knew what poor Eli’d had to put up with for the entire trip, he wondered how the man had managed.

The next morning, when Alex got up as tired as when he’d gone to bed, he was no longer smiling.

“Best night’s sleep I’ve had since we started on this trip,” Eli said as he poured coffee into tin mugs and handed them around. “Not once did I wake up from hearing whistles and wheezes.” He slapped Cay on the shoulder so hard she nearly fell off the log she was sitting on. “I tell you, boy, you’re the quietest sleeper I ever met. If I could just find a woman that quiet, I’d marry her in a minute.”

Alex was sitting across from them and glowering at Cay, but she was ignoring him.

“Are you looking for a wife?” Cay asked Eli.

“I told Mr. Grady before we left that this is my last time on one of his gadabouts. In fact, I said I didn’t want to go on this one, but he begged me. ‘I can’t go without you, Eli,’ he said. ‘Especially not on
this
trip.’”

Alex looked at Cay to make sure she understood the significance of what Eli was saying. It was as though he was admitting that Grady, somehow, knew about Cay, and about Alex, too. They were to reach the trading post in just three days, and there they’d get horses and go riding south rather than on the flatboat. Alex couldn’t help but wonder what would be waiting for them at the post. A sheriff with handcuffs?

But Cay wouldn’t look at Alex, didn’t acknowledge his hint to her. Her attention was on Eli. “I think I have the perfect wife for you.”

“Do you?” Eli asked, his voice interested.

“I don’t think that now is the time—” Alex began, meaning to cut her off. If, by chance, they didn’t know she was female, her matchmaking would give her away for sure.

Again, Cay paid no attention to him. “She’s Uncle T.C.’s goddaughter.”

“Miss Hope?” Eli asked, his eyes wide in wonder.

“Then you know her?”