“
That’s fine, I’d love your help. But
don’t you want to wash and get dressed first? I haven’t even cooked
breakfast yet. We have plenty of time to fix lunch.”
Olivia glanced out the window again, and
Althea followed the path of her gaze. His face full of white
lather, Jeff Hicks stood outside the lean-to, staring into the
mirror she’d given him. He’d hung it on a nail next to the
door.
“
I don’t think he should be here,”
Olivia murmured. “I don’t think any good will come of
it.”
“
He’s just helping us. You go on, and
I’ll have pancakes ready for you when you come down
again.”
Finally Olivia nodded and padded to the back
stairway.
Althea watched her sister climb the steps and
she released the breath she’d been holding. Olivia hadn’t suffered
from a convulsion in months. Althea hoped with all her heart that
she wasn’t going to begin having them again. Maybe she hadn’t slept
enough, or perhaps the change of having Jeff on the property had
upset her a little. She’d be fine, Althea assured herself. She just
had to be.
Turning, she began to gather flour, eggs, and
the other necessary ingredients to make pancakes. With an extra
mouth to feed, she’d have to remember to tell Mr. Wickwire to send
more food out.
An extra mouth.
. . . you were enjoying it.
Oh, well, maybe she had found satisfaction in
cutting Jeff Hicks’ shaggy mop, she admitted to herself, but only
because it gave her a sense of accomplishment and order. She
cracked the eggs into a bowl and whisked them with a fork.
Revealing the shape of his head hiding beneath almost made him look
younger. Now his hair just brushed his collar—or where she’d
estimated that his collar would reach. He’d been wearing no shirt,
after all. Although she’d tried, she couldn’t ignore the
sharp-edged wings of his shoulder blades, or the shadowed hollows
they created. His skin had been cool and damp from his bath, but it
soon warmed under the sun. And he’d smelled good—different from her
father or Lane.
Glancing at the eggs again, she realized
she’d whipped them into a high, pale-yellow froth. “For heaven’s
sakes,” she muttered. She measured flour, baking powder, and a
little milk into the bowl.
Soon she had bacon and eggs frying while she
poured pancake batter onto the cast iron griddle. It was a working
man’s kind of breakfast, she realized. Neither she nor Olivia ate
this much in the morning. But Jeff was too thin—who knew when he’d
eaten his last decent meal before last night?—and she had hard work
planned for him. He’d need a big meal to sustain him until
lunch.
She assembled a tray for him: a stack of four
fluffy pancakes dotted with butter, two fried eggs, three slices of
bacon, and coffee. When she pushed open the screen door, she
spotted him still at the lean-to, just finishing with the
razor.
“
Mr. Hicks,” she called. He looked up
and she lifted the tray slightly. He hurried into the shirt she’d
given him. The sleeves were a bit too short, so he folded them back
to his elbows, exposing sturdy forearms dusted with blond hair.
Then he jammed the short tails into the waist of his jeans. Well,
she supposed the shirt didn’t really fit—at least it was clean and
whole, even if his jeans were not. But as he neared her she saw
that he still looked worn out, although his eyes were not as red as
they had been the day before. The most striking feature at the
moment, though, were a dozen or more nicks on his face. Some of
them slowly oozed blood, others were drying.
“
Goodness, Mr. Hicks! What have you
done to yourself?”
“
It’s nothing, ma’am.” He reached up
and pressed his thumb to a particularly nasty cut on his chin. Then
he shrugged like a self-conscious youth, and turned his profile to
her.
But he wasn’t a youth. He was a man, and his
hand shook as if he had St. Vitus’ dance.
Guilt scuttled through Althea. That was why
he hadn’t wanted to use the razor, because his hands trembled, not
because he was being stubborn.
And she had insisted.
She put the tray down on the tree stump and
searched her apron pocket for her clean handkerchief. “Here,” she
said quietly, pulling it out, “wet this at the pump. The cold water
will help stop the bleeding.”
He took a step backward. “No, ma’am, I’ll
ruin it.”
She was beginning to wish that he’d stop
calling her “ma’am.” “You won’t ruin it. It’s just an ordinary
square of white linen.” Olivia’s things were lacy and furbelowed.
Althea’s were plain and serviceable. She held out the handkerchief
for several moments, feeling as if she were waving it at a passing
train. “Go on, now.” Finally he took it from her.
“
Thanks.”
“
I’ll leave your breakfast here. Just
put the hanky on the tray when you’re finished with it. I can find
some other ones for you to use.” Knowing where those handkerchiefs
would come from, Althea’s gaze strayed briefly to the gravesite,
half expecting to see the earth swell and buckle as Amos Ford
rolled over.
“
Thanks again, ma’am.”
Althea nearly cringed. “Mr. Hicks, it isn’t
necessary to call me ‘ma’am.’ ”
He grinned at her suddenly, briefly. It was
the first real smile she’d seen on his face. His eyes crinkled at
the outer corners and another five years came off his appearance.
She marveled at this attractive man who’d been hiding under the
shaggy hair and straggling beard. The funny flutter in her stomach
came back.
“
All right, Allie. I’m not real partial
to ‘Mr. Hicks’ either. My name is Jeff.”
Allie! She had not given him permission to
address her so informally. “My name is Althea, but you may call me
Miss Ford. Anyway, a woman my age can’t be called a name that
sounds so—so girlish.”
He considered her with a slight squint. “You
don’t look like an Althea.”
“
No? And what does an Althea look
like?”
He pulled his thumb away from his chin to
check the blood there. “I’m not sure. But not like you.”
She couldn’t believe that she lingered with
this silly conversation—she had work to do, a picnic to get ready
for, and a sister to mollify. Maybe it was the ache she saw in his
green eyes that kept her there. Or the way the sun glinted off the
gold strands in his hair. But she had to end it.
“
You clean up your face and then eat
your breakfast, Mr. Hicks.” She couldn’t bring herself to call him
by his first name. “You’ve got a lot to keep you busy, and I have
to look after my sister. She’s a bit feeble.”
“
Yes, ma’am.” He dropped his gaze and
an edge of tired bitterness crept into his voice. Hearing it,
Althea knew she’d put it there.
“
Well, I— I’ll see you at lunch.”
Althea turned and walked back toward the house, hoping she wouldn’t
have to see that haunted pain hiding behind his eyes again anytime
soon.
~~*~*~*~~
The morning went faster than Jeff had
expected. The big breakfast Althea had given him saw him through
hours of hammering and crab-walking across the steep pitch of the
roof. The sun warmed up early on, and sweat trickled over the nicks
and razor burn on his face, stinging like witch hazel.
But now, after giving his work a final
inspection, he looked over the expanse of shingles and felt
satisfaction. That was something Jefferson Hicks hadn’t felt in a
long time. And he realized that so far this morning, he’d thought
about taking a drink only twice. He’d done hard work and he’d done
it well. Of course, the next rain would bring the true test.
He was about to step onto the ladder when he
heard two female voices outside. Although their words were too
faint to catch, one voice he recognized as Althea’s. The other,
higher and much younger, he assumed belonged to her sister.
“
Mr. Hicks, I’m putting your lunch over
here,” Althea called as she carried a tray to the tree stump. She
glanced up briefly, but didn’t make eye contact with him. And she
was still calling him Mr. Hicks.
She was a fine-looking woman, he thought
again, even if she was as stiff as a collar stay. He racked his
memory, trying to recall what had been said in town about these two
sisters. All he could remember was something about them being
crazy, but obviously that hadn’t been right. He’d met their father
once or twice—he’d been a dour, sour man, one to whom joy had
seemed to be an enemy.
Jeff came down the ladder and eyed the tray.
It looked like she’d given him a few sandwiches, some potato salad,
and a piece of cake with chocolate frosting. The stool was still
there by the tree stump, so he sat down. The little sandwiches had
their crusts cut off and they were cut in quarters. It made him
think of food a person would give to a child. He cast a sidelong
glance at porch, where Althea’s sister sat on a blanket. She was
slight and fragile-looking, and Jeff guessed her to be about
fourteen or fifteen years old. She sat on a blanket with her hands
folded in her lap and her skirts arranged around her as if she
posed for a portrait. In fact, with her long, light blond hair
hanging down her back, she reminded him of an illustration he’d
once seen in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.
And she was staring at him.
He gave her a smile and a nod, but she only
looked away, and appeared not to have noticed. Althea had told him
that her sister was feeble—hell, maybe she’d meant
feeble-minded.
Althea came outside again with a plate.
“Here, Olivia, take a sandwich and start eating.” Then seeing Jeff,
she called, “Oh, Mr. Hicks—this is my sister, Olivia.”
“
Ma’am.”
Olivia didn’t answer, and then he saw Althea
whisper something to her.
“
How do you do, Mr. Hicks,” Olivia
replied woodenly.
“
It’s such a nice day, we thought we’d
have a little picnic here on the porch,” Althea added.
Olivia didn’t speak again, but she began
talking to her sister in hushed tones.
Jeff felt like a conspicuous outsider, like a
fly on a white tablecloth, with the two of them whispering about
him, so he concentrated on his lunch. He examined the sandwiches—he
didn’t think he’d ever seen ones like these, with the crusts
trimmed off. He supposed that a woman as finicky as Althea Ford
would hack off any crust that interfered with her sense of order.
They were good, though. A couple of them were made with roast beef
and some others with blackberry jam that smelled sweet and tart at
the same time. Hell, he couldn’t remember the last time someone had
fixed him a lunch.
This was how people lived, he recalled, even
odd ones like the Ford sisters. With scheduled mealtimes and days
filled with work and activity. They slept under the same roof every
night, and woke up in a familiar place in the morning, not
wondering how they’d gotten out of their clothes, or why they’d
slept with their clothes on, or where they’d lost their boots. He’d
let all of that slip away from him in the past couple of years. But
then, it was pretty hard for a man to keep a schedule when he
didn’t give a damn about what happened to him.
After gobbling down his lunch, Jeff was about
to stand up and go investigate the rickety front porch trellis when
a voice stopped him.
“
I was in discord in Gateshead Hall: I
was like nobody there; I had nothing in harmony with Mrs. Reed or
her children, or her chosen vassalage. If they did not love me, in
fact as little did I love them.”
Jeff glanced at the two on the porch and saw
that Althea was reading to her sister. He didn’t know what book she
held on her lap, but with the birds twittering in the oaks and the
light breeze ruffling his shirt collar, it seemed right to hear a
woman reading aloud on a day like this. Her voice was clear and
distinct, and a memory darted through his mind of his mother
reading to her boys.
He was glad his mother couldn’t see what had
happened to him. She hadn’t raised him or his brothers to be lazy
or dirty. No, ma’am. A tiny, strong-willed widow left with five
boys to bring up, Kate Hicks had taught them that hard work, honor,
and acceptance of responsibility were their own rewards. He doubted
that she would even recognize him now.
He got a letter from her once or twice a
year. Kirby Bromfield at the telegraph office would hunt him down
and deliver it. Jeff kept the letters with his gear, but he’d
stopped opening them. A current of hurt ran through them when she
described wondering how he was and asked why he’d stopped writing.
They tore at Jeff’s heart to read them. He’d tried to write back to
her once, to lie and tell her that he was fine, just to give her
peace. After all, how could he tell her the truth—that her eldest
son, the sheriff of Decker Prairie of whom she’d been so proud—had
fallen to such depths? But his hand had trembled so much that he’d
splattered ink on the paper, and the few words he’d managed to
scratch out had been illegible. He couldn’t ask someone else to do
the writing—his pride wouldn’t permit that. Frustrated, he’d balled
up the page and thrown it away.
The last time his mother had seen him was on
his wedding day in Klamath Falls five years earlier. With cheering
family and old friends waving them on, he and Sally had started out
on the three-day trip to Decker Prairie, and his new job, that
afternoon. Pretty little Sally, just two weeks older than
seventeen, sat on the wagon seat next to him with her hand tucked
in the crook of his arm. He thought she was the most beautiful
bride he’d ever seen. The thinly-veiled eagerness he’d seen in her
eyes made him only too happy to escape the inevitable shivaree that
would have interrupted their wedding night. He would make love to
his new wife slowly and completely, with only the stars and moon to
witness their consummation.