Somewhere in the trees a song sparrow called
sweet-sweet-sweet.
“
Yes.” Before reason or the hard hand
of fate had the chance to stop him, he lowered his head and took
her mouth with his own. It was a real kiss this time—he plied her
with his lips and tongue—not just a tentative brush. And for a
moment, all of their troubles did fall away. It was a young summer
day—nothing existed but the wind and a man with a woman in his
arms. Her ripe mouth was warm and slick and yielding, and her
breath fanned his cheek. With his hands he searched the length of
her rib cage, seeking her full, soft breast. Her nipple pushed
against the thin fabric of her summer dress and hardened beneath
his fingertips. When a whimper sounded in her throat, the fire that
licked through Jeff’s body burned higher and he tightened his arms
around her, pulling her off her feet and up against the length of
his torso. She fit perfectly in his arms, and he would bet good
money that they’d be a perfect fit in every way. With his pulse
pounding in his head, he drew back for a moment and muttered
hoarsely, “God, Allie, if I could, I’d lay you down in this tall
grass right now and make you forget all the bad things that ever
happened to you, whatever they were.”
At his words, she straightened away from him.
He reached for her, but she put out an unsteady hand, as if to hold
him back, and he cursed himself for scaring her. Her face was
flushed and she sucked in a deep breath.
“
No one can change the bad things,
Jeff. I-I’m sorry that Olivia blamed you for the trick she played
on me. It was very wrong of her, very wrong. But I’m sure she
didn’t mean to hurt you.”
Frustrated to find his arms empty and Olivia
Ford the topic of conversation again, Jeff snapped, “Who did she
mean to hurt, then? You?” As soon as the words were out of his
mouth, he could have bitten off his tongue for asking the sarcastic
question.
Allie gave him a look that made his heart
thump against his ribs. “I guess she did.”
For only the second time in his life, Jeff
felt compelled to right a wrong. The first time he’d been powerless
to undo the damage—he could not have called back the bullet to his
revolver, or healed the wound it made in Wesley Cooper’s chest.
This was different, though. He would save Allie Ford, if he could,
if he knew how . . .
“
Are you going to face your sister?
Tell her what you know now?”
She shook her head. “It might upset her. I
don’t want to risk that.”
Oh, no, we wouldn’t want to upset the fragile
flower. Never mind that the woman had framed him and terrorized
Allie. This time Jeff did bite back the smart remark that popped
into his head. Allie didn’t need anymore trouble than she already
had. Instead he suggested mildly, “Honey, maybe if you tell me
about your mother, it won’t seem so terrible anymore.”
She gave him a fearful, doubting look.
“
Come on—it can’t be as bad as what I
told you about Wes and my wife and all.”
Her look turned hard and ice-blue. “It’s
worse. You acted out of self-defense when you shot Wesley
Matthews.”
“
For God’s sake, Allie, you didn’t kill
you mother.”
“
Yes, I did.” She turned on her heel
and retraced her steps back to the house.
Jeff stared at her narrow back as she went.
Then he headed off to the barn to get a shovel to dig out the
dandelion.
~~*~*~*~~
Allie walked back to the house to discover
that Seth Wickwire had left her grocery order in a crate on the
back porch. Between learning about Olivia’s deception and partaking
of Jeff’s heated kiss, by the time Allie reached the bright
kitchen, she was almost wringing her hands. Hoping that to occupy
those hands would also occupy her mind, she washed the dirt off
them, and put the provisions away. Then she greased her hands with
lard and went to work shaping the bread dough into loaves.
The warm, yeasty smell in the kitchen was
nice, but the distractions didn’t help. Her thoughts raced around
in her brain like a bee trapped in a glass jar.
This kitchen, this house seemed so confining
to her. More often lately, Allie had caught herself daydreaming
about putting on her shawl and walking away. Away from the farm,
from her responsibilities, just leaving without a backward
glance.
She hadn’t wanted to hear whatever Jeff was
suggesting about her sister.
She hadn’t wanted to believe that Olivia, her
own flesh and blood, had so cruelly and deliberately hurt her. But
that she was responsible for the horrible prank with the dummy was
glaringly clear, and Allie couldn’t deny the facts presented to
her. Jeff wouldn’t have known where to find her mother’s clothes,
or in fact, that the gray gingham dress had belonged to Lucinda
Ford.
Did her sister truly see Jeff Hicks as such a
threat that she would stop at nothing to be rid of him? Did she
really believe that anything could make Allie forget her duty?
The question in her mind faded before the
memory of Jeff’s hands on her, urgent and seeking, lifting her off
her feet. The kiss and the hot sensation of his intimate touch had
made her forget everything else—just for a minute. No one had ever
touched her like that. Every fiber in her body had come alive, and
it surprised her to feel so intensely. She knew it was probably
wrong, but nothing in her life had ever seemed so right. She’d felt
transported, and pulling herself away from him was one of the most
difficult things she’d ever done.
Glancing down at her hand, she realized that
she’d squeezed a lump of dough until it ran out between her
fingers. With an impatient “tsk” she shook off the dough and
reshaped it. Allie had done everything she could to protect Olivia,
defer to her, dote on her. And now, just because a hired hand was
working around here . . .
Except Allie couldn’t think of Jeff Hicks
that way anymore. Maybe she never really had. Something about him
had challenged her from the beginning. Not the way that Cooper
Matthews had challenged her—that man was simply rude and
overbearing. Jeff had roused her curiosity.
But regardless of what she’d told Jeff about
reassuring her sister, she realized that Olivia’s deed was simply
too much to bear in silence.
Allie would have to speak to her. Even
children had to be corrected from time to time. Their father had
certainly corrected Althea.
Then there was
Jeff . . . innocent of the ghastly deed he’d
been accused of. It was horrible, distressing. But oddly enough,
the moment she’d permitted herself to be enfolded in his arms had
been both calming and stunning. Allie stared at the greased loaf
pans on the kitchen table, not really seeing them. She had pulled
away, not because she feared him, but because she was afraid of the
flood of sensations and crystalized emotion that rushed through her
veins when he touched her. Afraid that if she didn’t pull away, she
would never want to again—
“
Althea, where are you?”
Her sister’s voice cut into her reverie like
a piece of broken glass. “Here Olivia. In the kitchen.”
Olivia swept in, her pink dimity skirts
rustling. She looked very upset. “Althea, that horrible man is
digging up our mother’s grave! I saw him from the upstairs
window.”
Allie immediately dropped her gaze, hoping
that Olivia had seen nothing else from that window. She knew Jeff
must have gotten a shovel to dig out the dandelion after she left
him. “No, he isn’t. He’s just getting a weed.”
“
But aren’t you going to at least go
see?”
“
I don’t need to, Olivia. I know what
he’s doing, and so does he.”
Her sister huffed out an impatient sigh.
“After that awful trick he played, how can you trust him to do
anything?”
Allie looked up again and gave her an even
gaze. “I trust him.”
Olivia laced her fingers together. “You seem
out of sorts, Althea. Maybe you need a cup of tea. I know—scurry
over and put the kettle on, and we can both have one. And make us
some toast with butter and jam, too, for a treat. Wouldn’t that be
nice?”
Force of habit strong within her, Allie began
to wipe her hands on her apron to carry out Olivia’s request. Then
she stopped. Jeff was right. Her sister should be made to answer
for what she had done, regardless of her motive. Allie stared at
the woman who was as overdressed as a fashion plate from Godey’s
Lady’s Book, a lifetime of sisterly devotion in her heart at odds
with inescapable fact. She drew a bracing breath. “Olivia, Jeff
showed me something this afternoon from that day in the
b-barn.”
Olivia’s expression turned sour. “I thought
we’d agree that you wouldn’t have anything to do with him.” Allie
quailed. Had Olivia seen her in Jeff’s arms, seen them kissing?
Recovering, she reminded her, “I still have
to talk to him, you know. Olivia, he showed me the dress that dummy
had on. It was Mother’s dress.”
Olivia leaned against the edge of the kitchen
table. “Dear God, Althea, hasn’t that man put us through enough?
Why in the world would he drag out that thing again?”
Allie stressed the obvious. “If he’s guilty,
how would he have gotten the dress?”
She waited for an answer, her pulse drumming
in her throat, her fingers sunk into the bread dough. Hope
struggled in her chest, hope that Olivia would give her some reason
other than the one Jeff had. A reason that wouldn’t be a lie, but
one that would exonerate her. Even that pixies or leprechauns had
gone to the trunk in the attic, she thought desperately. Please,
God, please let Jeff be wrong about this, she prayed. But one look
at her sister’s face told Allie that Jeff was right. Olivia had
hung that hideous effigy in the barn.
“
W-well, he probably found it in a shed
someplace, or maybe in the lean-to,” Olivia said. “He’s had lots of
time to look through all the old junk stored out there.” Her
evasion of the truth hurt Allie even more.
“
All of Mother’s things are in a trunk
in the attic. I put them up there myself, and I’ve never moved
them. You know that—we even spent an afternoon going through them.
And Jeff told me about the bird’s nest he showed you.” Her voice
dropped to a choked cry. “Why did you do it, Olivia?
Why?”
Hot color suffused her face. “You—you believe
him over me? Your own family?”
Allie held out her greased hands like a
supplicant. “Oh, dear Lord, I don’t want to, but I can’t ignore the
truth when it’s shown to me!”
“
I guess I know where your loyalty
lies. And after you promised Daddy!”
At the mention of Amos Ford, an icy sensation
gripped Allie’s insides but she remained adamant. “Loyalty—Olivia,
you used me. I’ve stayed by your side all these years, but you’re
so anxious to be rid of Jeff that you used me to play that dirty
trick. You didn’t care how much it hurt me!”
Olivia’s face blanched and her voice grew
distant and cool. She clutched the edge of the kitchen table with
one hand and rubbed her temple with the other. “Please, Althea, I
would really like to have that tea now. I guess I’m not as strong
as I thought.”
Allie made no move to comply, and after a
lifetime of waiting on her sister it was difficult to resist. She
closed her hands into fists. But perhaps Jeff was right, maybe it
was time that Olivia started to take care of herself. “You know how
to boil water, Olivia. You can put the kettle on.”
“
The room is beginning to
sp-spin.”
“
It won’t hurt you to make your own
tea.”
Olivia’s eyes rolled upward, and acting out
of sheer instinct, Allie whipped around to the other side of the
table and pushed a chair under her sister just as her knees
buckled. “It’s all right, now. Just take a few deep breaths—”
Allie put an arm around Olivia’s shoulders to
keep her upright. At her touch, Olivia began rocking back and
forth, howling like a banshee, her body as rigid as a plank. The
howls gave way to deep, rough sobs that tore from her throat.
Her flying hands fell to the bowl of flour on
the table, and she grabbed handfuls, flinging it everywhere. A
choking white cloud enveloped them both. With her free arm, Allie
tried to keep Olivia’s grasping fingers from reaching the pans and
other utensils on the table. But before she could push them away,
Olivia gripped a heavy cast-iron pan and flung it across the
kitchen as though it weighed no more than an empty matchbox. The
next one Allie made a grab for, but it struck her cheekbone before
sailing toward the kitchen window.
White-hot pain flashed through her head and
she tasted the salty tang of blood where she bit the inside of her
cheek. Tears sprang to her eyes and she saw bright flashes of
stars. Olivia’s spells had never made her fear for more than her
sister’s safety.
Now she feared for her own.
~~*~*~*~~
Jeff was taking the shovel back to the barn
when the sound of shattering glass brought him up short. God, what
the hell was that? he wondered. Fear for Allie’s safety propelled
him across the yard and he flew up the back porch steps in one
leap. Through the screen door he saw Olivia pounding the table with
a big cooking spoon, and he heard her ululating like an old Cree
chief he’d once seen in a medicine show.
Allie was trying to restrain her sister but
it looked like she was losing the battle. The top half of her apron
had been torn from around her neck and an angry-looking bruise was
forming on her cheek. Allie’s strength was no match for
Olivia’s—when she looked up and he caught her gaze, he saw genuine
fear in her eyes.
Fury, complete and consuming, radiated from
the pit of his stomach. But no matter how much he wanted to, he
knew he couldn’t run in there and slap Olivia to snap her out of
this temper tantrum. There was no good excuse for hitting a woman.
And he didn’t want to risk another bite if he could avoid it.