To do a proper job, she should have
determined the circumference of his neck and chest, but both would
require putting her arms around him to encircle him with the
tape.
No! Althea could not make herself do that,
especially given the chaotic feelings churning through her mind and
body. She would have to work from memory when she cut the fabric.
Looking at Jeff now, she didn’t think that would be difficult.
“
That—that should do, Mr. Hicks,” she
said, and stuffed the tape back into her pocket. He turned and
faced her again, and her heart began pounding so hard from the
nearness of him she thought she might faint.
“
Jeff . . . my name
is Jeff.”
She stared up into his green eyes, feeling
like a deer hypnotized by lantern light, as if she dared not look
away. Although he wasn’t touching her, he held her fast.
“What?”
“
Say it.”
She could feel waves of heat pouring off his
body. Dear God, what was he going to do to her? “J-J-J—Mr.
Hicks—really, I should be go—”
“
Say it, Allie.” He commanded her with
a whisper that caressed her name. “Say ‘Jeff’.”
“
J-Jeff.”
“
Again.”
“
Jeff.”
“
No more ‘Mr. Hicks.’ No more ‘ma’am’
or ‘Miss Ford.’ ”
She shook her head slightly, her gaze still
fixed on his weary, handsome face. She saw loneliness and fear in
his green eyes that pierced her heart. But she saw fire, too.
“
Jeff. Allie.”
“
Jeff,” she repeated, beginning to
tremble. All she wanted at that moment was to lean closer and feel
his arms enfold her. He brushed her jaw with his fingertips, then
let his hand slide down her shoulder and around to her back. With a
little pressure, he pulled her toward him as though they were
dancing.
Her breath came faster, as her heart
demanded. She’d never been held by a man, and had never thought she
would be. Until now.
Slowly, Jeff tipped his head toward hers,
filling her field of vision with his eyes and handsome face,
bringing his lips within scant inches of her own—
“
Althee-ah! Where are you?”
They jumped apart. The sound of Olivia’s
voice cut between them like a cold, sharp blade, dragging her back
to the present, and to everything else.
She glanced over her shoulder toward the
house. “Oh—I shouldn’t have stayed so—my sister—I’ll start work on
your shirts as soon as I can.” Then she turned and fled the tiny
room where a man she hardly knew had made her feel, for a
breathless, dizzying instant, that they were the only two people in
the world.
The only two people who mattered.
~~*~*~*~~
“
Althea, I was so worried when I
couldn’t find you. I didn’t know where you went. One moment you
were in the kitchen, the next you had disappeared.” Indeed, Olivia
looked pale and distraught as she tagged after her sister. Althea
could only hope that her own face was not as red as it felt. “I
looked in every room for you. For all I knew, you could have had an
accident outside somewhere or been hurt by that—that
handyman—”
Althea clutched the length of gray chambray
in her arms that she’d fetched from her bedroom. Olivia had become
so uncertain and clinging since Jeff Hicks had come to stay. But
Olivia had nothing to fear from him—only Althea did, and that was
the loss of her own good sense. If her sister hadn’t interrupted,
Jeff would have kissed her. And she would have let him.
She carried the fabric to the dining room
table. “I had to measure Jeff—Mr. Hicks, that is—for the shirt I
need to make him.”
Olivia lifted her brows delicately. “You’re
going to sew for him? Whatever for?”
“
He doesn’t have any shirts of his own
and we don’t have any here that he can wear.” Althea hoped she
sounded brisk and businesslike. In truth, her jaw still tingled
where Jeff’s fingers had touched it. She unfurled the chambray down
the length of the table. “I have this perfectly good cloth going
unused. It’s the least we can do—the man can’t go around without a
shirt.”
Olivia stood with her hands resting on the
back of her father’s chair at the head of the table. “I
suppose not . . . how can he have no
shirts? I never heard of a grown person not having clothes.”
Althea regarded her, dressed in sea-green
muslin with frothy billows of ruffles edging the hem. Though they
both a lived a simple, isolated existence, Olivia had never been
denied anything in her life, and from her childlike viewpoint, she
couldn’t imagine anyone else’s bad luck or bad choices. “Some
people aren’t as fortunate as we are.”
“
Because daddy always took good care of
us.”
Althea couldn’t respond to that. Yes, though
farming wasn’t a wealthy man’s occupation, Amos Ford had given his
family a comfortable life. They’d never starved, and he’d kept a
roof over their heads and put clothes on their backs. But to Olivia
he’d also given his regard and approval. If only there had been
something left for his eldest daughter—
“
Now it’s our turn to help someone
else,” Althea replied, smoothing the fabric with her hands, fabric
that would eventually curve around Jeff Hicks’
shoulders.
Olivia watched her for a moment, then turned
to leave the room. “I believe I’ll go up to bed. I’ve been feeling
weak and tired today.”
Althea, trying to decide the best cutting
layout, turned her attention back to the chambray. “Oh? Well,
that’s fine, dear. You go on.”
“
I hope I feel better tomorrow,” her
sister ventured from the doorway.
“
I’m sure you will.” Her mind racing
with pictures of Jeff, his lips, the heat in his eyes, Althea
didn’t look up.
“
Oh, I thought you’d like to know—when
I looked out my window this afternoon, I noticed quite a few weeds
on the graves.”
Althea’s head snapped up, her full attention
on Olivia. “Weeds?”
Olivia nodded, making her long silky curls
bounce. “They seem to be thriving. And I know how particular you
are about tending the graves. Well, goodnight.” She glided away
then, her taffeta petticoats rustling against the doorframe as she
passed.
~~*~*~*~~
Jeff sat outside the lean-to on an old crate,
looking at the velvet night. From the nearby creek he heard the
faint sound of croaking frogs, and a lone night bird sent a
high-pitched call across the fields.
The moon was just a scrap of silver-white in
the black sky, a hint of what it had been in the past and would
grow into again. As he watched it, for the first time in many
months Jeff found himself wondering about the man he had
become.
Over the course of all this time, he’d
allowed his feelings—his heart—to die. It was funny how a man’s
spirit could wither, yet his body still worked and his legs still
walked. But while he’d had nothing else to be proud of, he had
actually begun to take pride in the fact that he cared about
nothing and no one, not even himself.
Then he’d met Althea Ford and in a matter of
days, for no reasons he could understand, his silent, withered
heart had begun to beat again. He’d felt anger. He’d felt
satisfaction. A few hours earlier, he’d felt desire for a
woman.
But most of all, he felt lonely. That was new
to him, and he couldn’t say he liked it much. Whiskey was a
reasonable cure for a man’s emptiness, and up to now he’d cured it
every day.
He still saw Allie as she’d looked, with her
tape measure and no-nonsense manner. Beneath that exterior, though,
he sensed a softer woman with her own desires and hopes left
unfulfilled. When her fingers touched him—lightly, so lightly—he’d
hoped she wouldn’t notice the goose bumps she raised on his skin.
Or the hard, swift arousal that strained against the front of his
jeans. He had been just seconds away from claiming her soft coral
mouth with his own.
After she ran back into the house, he’d found
his appetite again and wolfed down the cold chicken and potatoes
that had been his dinner. He could have eaten a whole coop of
chickens, he’d been so hungry.
But Jeff knew that food wasn’t what he really
craved.
He turned his gaze to the dark house on his
right. The only light came from a window upstairs. He didn’t know
if it was Allie’s window, but he knew that whether or not he wanted
to think about her face and soft form, they would be in his mind
when sleep finally took him.
~~*~*~*~~
Althea lay in her narrow bed, tense and
restless. The night was unusually hot and still, and sleep would
not come to her. When she closed her eyes she saw Olivia, looking
lost and anxious as she’d stood on the porch. Or she envisioned her
parents graves’, overrun with weeds, and her father’s stern, dark
expression.
But sometimes she saw Jeff Hicks standing in
before her without a shirt, long and lean and warm to the
touch.
Guilt and yearning tore at her in equal
measures.
Don’t let me down again, girl.
Jeff. Allie.
The guilt won out.
There was no Allie and Jeff. She rolled over
to her side, dragging the sheet with her and binding her body in
its length. She’d hired the man to do some work around the farm and
that was all. She had no right to begin daydreaming just because
he’d touched her cheek and might have kissed her while she measured
him for a shirt. She couldn’t.
Besides, Althea supposed she didn’t deserve
any dreams at all. And even if she did, her responsibility to
Olivia came before anything else.
Jeff Hicks was not part of her life and he
could not be. That was a certainty.
Some women were meant to be wives and
mothers. Althea knew that she was meant to be her sister’s
companion.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The sun had barely crept over the horizon
when Jeff pulled himself out of bed in the lean-to and jammed his
arms into his shirt sleeves. The shirt was one of the ones Allie
had brought to him, and it fit no better than the first one had.
But if she’d meant what she said last night, he’d soon have a new
shirt that would be the right size.
He stood in the doorway with his hands braced
against the frame. It was a clean, dewy morning, touched with mist.
The kind of morning that only May could bring. He hadn’t seen one
like this for years. It surprised him to realize how much he’d
missed it.
Grabbing his towel and the tin wash basin he
used for shaving, he headed off for the trough. His hands were
steadier this morning, and so was his stomach. In fact, they seemed
to be getting a little better every day. Today he had to start
clearing the field for Allie’s garden. Given the tangle of weeds
and grass choking it, he knew he had a hell of a job in front of
him.
As he crossed the yard he glanced off to his
right toward the pair of headstones that marked the graves of
Allie’s parents under the limbs of a stately oak. A short, white
wrought iron fence surrounded the area, and unlike the rest of the
property it was freshly painted. Looking closer, Jeff realized that
Allie was kneeling inside the enclosure. With her head lowered that
way, the thick braid that fell over her shoulder swung back and
forth with her movements, and made him think of a dark garnet
caught in a ray of sun.
At first he thought that maybe she was having
a personal moment at her parents’ graves. He would respect her
privacy and go on about his business. But then he realized she was
working at something, and working with a vengeance as if the devil
were driving her. Her flushed face was smudged with dirt, and
strands of hair straggled around her temples. She wore a faded
plum-colored skirt, and her snug-fitting white blouse clung to the
roundness of her full breasts. She was not as neat and tidy as
usual, but that made her look even more appealing than she had last
night.
Jeff stepped up to the short fence and saw
Allie clawing at the soil with a pronged weeder, grim determination
creasing her forehead.
“
Isn’t that something you’d like me to
take care of, Allie?” he asked quietly. It seemed like a fair trade
for the shirt she was going to make him.
She jumped, obviously startled, and looked up
at him. “Oh, Mr. Hicks— I’m sorry, what did you say?”
Back to “Mr. Hicks.” He stepped inside the
fence but kept a respectful distance from the margins of the
graves. “I can do this for you. You probably have better things to
see after in the house.”
She rose on her knees and clutched the weeder
to her breast as if it were a sacred object. “Dear God, no! I mean,
thank you, but I have to do this. It’s my responsibility. Besides,
I know how he—how I want it.”
Jeff thought he saw fear in Allie’s eyes. He
glanced around and it looked as though she’d just gotten started;
not much of the dirt had been disturbed. The burying ground,
though, was a complete contrast to the rest of the farm. Sure a few
weeds had popped up, but he could see that it was well tended. Some
kind of small-bloomed flowers—pansies maybe—were planted in neat
half-circle beds that had been cut out in front of each granite
headstone. The rest of the ground was planted with grass. Tiny
daisies dotted its rough green plane.
Amos Ford’s headstone was plain and spare,
carved only with the dates of his birth and death. Her mother’s,
though, had been engraved with birds and flowers, and a peculiar
inscription: Happier in death than in life.
“
It looks nice here—your hard work
shows,” he said, tucking the basin against his side.
“
My father wouldn’t tolerate a weed on
his grave or on my mother’s.” She talked as if Amos was still
alive, and the fear he saw in her eyes grew when she mentioned
him.