Making Hay (8 page)

“But the kiss, Mammy?”

“What about the kiss?”

Lessy’s cheeks were flushed with shame. “I liked it, Mammy,” she said. “I liked it a lot.”

Nora rested her chin in her palm thoughtfully. “Did you want it to go on forever?”

“Forever? No.”

“Did you feel like you were home at last?”

“Home? We were in the peach orchard.”

“Did your heart tell you that you couldn’t live without that man?”

Lessy blushed and shook her head. “No, Mammy. My heart kept wishing it was Vassar who kissed like that.”

Nora grinned, her expression now completely unconcerned as she shrugged. “That Ripley is the kind of fellow that’s been with lots of women, Lessy. A man may learn a few tricks about kissing women that way. Now, maybe your Vass ain’t as wise in loving ways. But it ain’t an unpleasant study, and I’m thinking you two could learn together.”

Lessy swallowed hopefully. “Do you think so, Mammy? Do you think Vass could learn to kiss me like that?”

Her mother chuckled. “I suspect he’d be willing to die trying.”

For the first time in hours, Lessy smiled. Maybe things were not as hopeless as they had seemed.

“Of course he’ll learn to kiss me like that when we’re wed,” Lessy assured herself happily. “Why, he’s so fine and upstanding, I don’t suppose that Vass has ever kissed a woman before in his life.”

Out of the comer of her eye Lessy caught a strange expression on her mother’s face. “What is it, Mammy?”

Nora began readying herself for bed as if she hadn’t heard Lessy’s question.

“Mammy?” Lessy’s tone was insistent.

Hesitating, as if weighing her words, Nora Green finally shook her head. “I think that he has.”

“You think that he’s kissed women before?”

“Yes.” Her answer was firm and simple, but there was something in her mother’s tone of voice that prompted questions in Lessy’s mind.

“What is it, Mammy? Is there something you should tell me?”

Sighing heavily before she answered, Lessy’s mother seemed clearly unhappy about the revelation she was about to make. “I understand from Jake that the main reason he wanted Vass to come out here and work for us was to separate him from a woman.”

Lessy’s eyes widened with surprise, and a lump of anxiety settled in the back of her throat. “He was in love with another woman?”

“I don’t know if he loved her. He was... ah, seeing her.”

Jealousy warred with confusion in Lessy’s mind. “Why didn’t he marry her? Did Cousin Jake not approve of the match?”

Lessy’s mother cleared her throat nervously and looked her daughter straight in the eye. Nora hoped she was ready for the truth. “I don’t believe it was possible to approve or disapprove, Lessy. The woman was already married.”

Staring at her mother in stunned silence for several seconds, a tiny puff of disbelief emerged from Lessy’s mouth before she rolled over on her back to contemplate the ceiling.

“Vassar Muldrow and a married woman.” She whispered the words incredulously. Her Vass, the purest of souls, the finest of men, the noblest of the breed, carousing with another man’s wife. It was a shock. She didn’t know him any better than he knew her.

Her mother blew out the lamp before coming to bed. With a gesture of her hand she urged Lessy to her own side of the bed and crawled in to tuck them both in for the night. “He was young, Lessy, and it was a long time in the past. These things happen sometimes in life,” she told her daughter in a sympathetic whisper. “It’s best neither to judge nor ruminate. Just put the past behind you and go on. Like that kiss you shared with young Ripley, it was a mistake better outlived and forgotten.”

“We don’t know each other at all,” Lessy whispered, her gaze still focused on the dark ceiling above her.

V
ass saw
her bringing the water bucket when she was still half a hayfield away. He’d tried to avoid her for the last three days, and he’d managed to do a pretty good job of it. The woman he’d hoped to marry just a week ago had become a polite stranger, and he supposed it was all for the best.

He began moving away from the group. He didn’t want to be close when she dipped water for Ripley. He didn’t want to see them laughing, their heads together like happy children. He wanted her to be happy. But wanting her to be happy and watching her be that way with another man were not the same thing.

The bright gold of newly cut hay touched the deep summer blue of the sky behind her. Lessy was like a painted picture on a feed calendar. In his heart she had never looked more beautiful. And she did walk as if she floated off the ground, Vass thought to himself. And then hated that it was Ripley who had pointed it out to him.

He turned away from the sight of her and began hand-raking a long swath of alfalfa. There was a tiredness in his movements. He hadn’t slept well for days. He’d always wondered what the early mornings were really like, and now he knew for sure. Frequently he was still awake when they arrived.

The hay was nearly all in the barn. By this time tomorrow the crew would be gone. Would Ripley be staying here with them? Or would he be taking Lessy with him until the season was done? He hoped it was the latter. Within a month he could get things in order and head back to Arkadelphia. He didn’t think he could stand to live even a day at this farm with Lessy as a bride to another man.

Strangely his thoughts flew to Mabel Brightmore. Not to sweet memories of illicit indiscretion or wild stories of misspent youth, but to the pain he’d caused her poor old husband. For the first time he thought past his own sin to the pain Brightmore must have felt knowing another man claimed his woman’s love. Now he, too, felt that pain.

“I brought you some water.”

Vass started at the voice behind him and turned to see Lessy, her hair tucked in a bright blue bonnet smiling up at him in her so-familiar fashion.

He glanced over at the other men.

“Oh, I left them a bucket,” Lessy said, guessing his thoughts. “But I brought this jar for you.”

“Thank you,” Vass said quietly. “But you needn’t have gone to the trouble.”

“I wouldn’t have if I’d thought you’d stay near the men to get a drink, but you’ve been avoiding me so much, I was afraid you might be fainting in the field from thirst.” Her complaint was warm with teasing.

Vass smiled, slightly embarrassed, then took a long drink from the blue quart jar that Lessy handed him.

“It’s good,” he said, as if the comment were a compliment to her cooking.

With a sigh, Lessy nodded her thanks.

The two looked at each other for long moments, each wishing for something important to say. They had always talked. The farm, the future, the day-to-day workings of life, had come easily to their tongues. But they had never talked about anything important. They had never talked about the feelings they held inside. Now, in his heart, Vass knew that any words were too little and too late. He had never deserved her. He would never be worthy of her, but he did still want her. Vass now wished he’d thrown caution to the wind.

But she’d turned to another man. The fact jolted him back into his sad reality, and he took another swig from the jar just to occupy himself.

“I’m not marrying Ripley,” Lessy announced calmly, although her hands were shaking.

Vassar’s heart stopped for an instant, and his eyes widened in surprise. Then they narrowed in anger. “Is that no-account trying to worm his way out?”

Lessy sighed and shook her head. “No, he still wants to wed.” She laughed lightly. “I don’t know what you said to the man, Vass, but you’ve sure put the fear of God in him. He seems almost desperate to marry me.” She took a deep breath before looking him straight in the eyes. “But I’m not having him, not now, not ever.”

His expression lightened slightly, but concern was still evident in his features. “I know how you must worry,” he said. “But I’m sure that he cares for you. How could he not? And he’s not so bad a fellow, and those rounder ways, well, for certain, Lessy, he’s the kind of man to give them up when he’s wed.”

“I’m not worried about his rounder ways,” Lessy said. “I just don’t love him.”

She was so matter-of-fact that Vass was momentarily taken aback.

“Of course you do,” he insisted.

“No, I don’t, Vass. I simply don’t. Why would you think so?”

“I saw you in the peach orchard, Lessy,” he said quietly. “I know you. And you’re not the kind of woman to ... well.”

Lessy’s cheeks were bright red with embarrassment, but she bravely bit her lip before she spoke. “That’s what you don’t understand about me, Vass. I am exactly that kind of woman. I am exactly the kind of woman to do all kinds of silly foolishness. I’m just a regular, ordinary woman with as many faults as any of my gender.”

“What do you mean?”

“I tried to tell you that day, Vass. I am not the sweet, hardworking young farm woman who thinks everything you think and wants everything that you want. That’s just what I’ve pretended to be.”

“You are perfect,” Vass told her.

“No, Vass. Truth is, I’m far from perfect. Before you came I was as averse to chores as any other farm girl. I could hardly wait for Sundays to see my friends, and I spent my free time with them laughing and gossiping and getting into foolishness. I don’t want to spend my peach money on waterfowl for the pond. I want the fanciest silk wedding dress this county has ever seen. And I want to be kissed and sparked and spooned along the edges before I’m safely wed. And if the man I love isn’t willing, I am certainly weak enough that another man will do.”

Vass saw the tears that had formed in her eyes, and he knew he should reach to comfort her, but he was frozen in place.

“I love you and I have since the first day you drove up in the yard. And I tried to be perfect for you, Vassar, because I believed that you were perfect. I assured myself that you could never want me as myself, so I made myself become someone else. Someone as perfect as I believed that you were. Daddy used to tell me that my life was like bread dough. I could shape it and form it into anything I ever wanted. And he was right about that, Vass. I just didn’t understand that I would still be bread even if I fashioned myself as a heart of gold. I can’t be perfect for you, Vassar.”

He lifted his hands, denying her words. “Lessy, I’m not perfect myself.”

“I know that, Vass,” she said. “You like to sleep late, and you’re a little single-minded at times, and you work too hard. I was so busy loving you that I blinded myself to your faults and your weaknesses as I wanted to blind you to my own. But I cannot blind myself to the fact that you don’t seem to want me, Vass. You don’t want me as a man wants a woman.”

He swallowed hard. Her confession was frightening in its erroneousness, its honesty, and its potential. Maybe it was not over. Could there still be a chance for him to have the woman that he loved?

“I have more faults, Lessy, than those you’ve mentioned,” he said evenly. “I have a . .. well... a weakness for women that I’ve tried not to show you.”

Lessy looked up into his eyes, still trusting. “Mammy told me about your ‘woman trouble’ in Arkadelphia,” she said. “It’s truly none of my business, but I wished that I’d known it sooner. Then maybe I would have realized that it wasn’t my own, very human nature that kept you at a distance, but your own lack of desire for me.”

Vassar’s face was rigid.

“You wanted a good little farm wife that would do everything right but wouldn’t press on your heart, wouldn’t demand your love in return. Do you still carry a torch for that married woman in your past?”

He shook his head. “No! Lessy, of course I don’t.”

Lessy nodded only slightly. “Well, I am glad about that, I suppose.” She swallowed bravely. “I’ve already said that I love you, and I can tell you now that I always will. I just wish that you had a weakness for me the way you had a weakness for her. That’s what I came out here to tell you after all.” Her chin was raised with challenge, and her stance was willful with her arms folded stubbornly across her chest.

“I may never wed. I may live my whole life as an unloved, dried-up old maid. But I’d rather do that than have a man that I’d have to pretend with. Or a man that would have to pretend to wanting me.”

Eyes narrowing in anger, Lessy jerked the mason jar out of his hand. Fury stiffened her spine as she turned to go. Vass stared after her with stunned disbelief. Who was this wild fiery woman who was living in sweet little Lessy’s body? Who was spitting fire at him from soft-spoken little Lessy’s mouth? Who was stomping angrily away across the hayfield, the soft floating walk of Lessy now an alluring sultry sway of hips that enticed him with every step?

“Lessy!”

His call stopped her dead still, but she didn’t turn around. Vassar began to run. Standing stiffly in the field, she didn’t once look back as he called her name over and over as he raced toward her. Reaching her side, he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. His heart pounded in his chest as he drew her to face him.

“Lessy.” He spoke only a little above a whisper.

“Vassar,” she answered, her voice as quiet as his own.

A thousand thoughts jumbled in his mind. A thousand excuses and a thousand explanations jockeyed for first confession from his tongue. But the words that came out were from the heart, not the head.

“I love you, Lessy. I love you. I haven’t given more than a thought to Mabel Brightmore since the day I came to this farm. I want you, Lessy. How can you ever doubt it? I can’t get up in the morning because I spend all night long dreaming that I hold you in my arms.” His eyes burned with a feverish glow. “Make that dream come true for me, Lessy,” he whispered. ‘Take me, boring, slugabed, and all, and I will spend the rest of my life learning to love you for who you really are.”

He leaned forward and wrapped his arms about her waist. “I love you, Lessy,” he said. “I love you whoever you are.”

Pulling her close, Vass lowered his mouth to hers. It was a kiss of fire, a kiss of desperation, a kiss of passion. Lessy’s own arms circled his neck and pulled him even closer as she answered the question in his touch. His lips were greedy, eager, starving at her mouth, and he could not pull her near enough to ease the ache that gnawed at him.

Lessy, too, felt her flesh jittering like lightning in the clouds of a summer storm. She couldn’t keep her hands still as they wandered the wide breadth of his shoulders and caressed the soft blond hair at the nape of his neck.

One of Vassar’s big sun-browned hands slipped low on her back and pressed her more tightly against him. He rubbed himself against her in a rough and lusty manner, and her own eager response and moan of shocked delight urged him on.

Vass broke the kiss from her mouth to trail his lips along her throat. Greedily his tongue flickered against the tiny marks on the underside of her jaw that had long lured him. He pressed her bosom tightly to his chest, feeling her soft tempting roundness and the hard, eager nipples. Struggling valiantly he managed to get exploring fingers between his heated flesh and her own.

Lessy threw her head back in delight and bit down painfully on her lip, trying to control the waves of pleasure that were coursing through her.

Vassar’s other hand slid down her backside, clutching her bottom and squeezing her gently before venturing down the back of her thigh.

Pressing his face against her bosom, he heard and felt the rapid pounding of her heart. She wanted him as he wanted her. And he was loath to wait another minute.

He dropped to his knees in front of her and lay his cheek gently against the soft curve of her belly. Here she would receive his love, and here she would carry his children. He pressed his lips to the warm soft cotton of her skirt for one long struggling moment of thrilling enticement before he raised his eyes to hers.

He fought for breath and the right words to say as he took her hands in his own. Bringing her knuckles to his lips, he kissed them ardently, submissively, like a slave to a queen.

“Do you believe now that I want you, Lessy? Can you doubt it?”

He ran his hands eagerly along her thighs, and her eyes widened in shock and wicked delight.

“Marry me, Lessy,” he pleaded. “Marry me and allow me to learn everything there is to know about the woman that I love. Marry me and find out the truth about the man who has dreamed of being your husband since the day that we met.”

Lessy dropped to her knees beside him in the grass and whispered yes as again they embraced. Unashamedly they kissed and caressed each other in the blind passion of new love. Lessy trembled at his touch, and Vass struggled with control as the flame of their love set the kindling of desire to blaze.

Vass would have laid with her, there in the fresh-mown hay of the summer afternoon, and she would have let him. There was no shame or sin in what they felt. Vows unspoken had already been said with the heart.

But the hoots and hollers of a rowdy haying crew penetrated their blissful heaven, causing them to jerk away from each other in disbelief and embarrassment.

“The men!” Lessy squealed shamefaced as she hastily pulled together her bodice that inexplicably had come undone.

Vass hurriedly moved in front of her to shield her from the eyes of the yammering yahoos waving and shouting from near the hay wagon.

“I forgot that they were there,” Lessy admitted and then foolishly began to giggle.

Vass caught her mood and chuckled, also, before shaking his head with self-derision. “I swear, Lessy. I forgot that there was anyone else in the whole world.”