Bicycle Built for Two (27 page)

“I think it would be fun to have a job and
earn my own money.”

“Hmmm.” Kate didn’t want to get into that
one. Since pretty, spoiled little Mary Jo English didn’t know what
the heck she was talking about, there didn’t seem much point to
arguing.

“You only think so because you don’t have
to.”

Kate glanced up at Alex, who had made the
comment, and rather sharply, too. “Yeah,” she said. “Maybe that’s
it. I guess if your very life didn’t depend on it, working at a
paying job might not be so wearisome.”

“Maybe,” said Mary Jo, clearly unconvinced,
but unwilling or unable to argue.

Kate suspected she’d been threatened with all
sorts of punishments if she didn’t behave herself during the
Finneys’ visit.

“The trouble with you, little sister, is that
you have no responsibilities whatsoever, and Kate has too
many.”

“Um—” Kate said, but Mary Jo interrupted,
which was all right with her, because she didn’t want to go into
her own miserable life situation any more than she had to.

“That’s not fair! I do, so, have
responsibilities! I have to feed the chickens and gather the eggs
and slop the pigs and do all sorts of other chores!” Mary Jo’s
cheeks bloomed with indignant color as she flounced along in her
made-over dress.

“You don’t have the sorts of
responsibilities Kate has,” Alex intoned haughtily. “No young woman
should have to shoulder such burdens.”

“Humph.” Still rebellious, Mary Jo picked up
a stick and threw it as hard as she could.

“Well, now, I don’t know about that,” Kate
said, trying for a placating tone, although she agreed with Alex
regarding the disparity of the burdens meted out by a Maker Kate
had been told was benevolent. She hadn’t believed that one since
she was around three or four. A benevolent God wouldn’t have
burdened the world and its inhabitants with people like Kate’s
father.

From out of nowhere, a black-and-white dog
bounded up to them, Mary Jo’s stick in its mouth. Kate jumped back
and uttered a small shriek. She wasn’t really afraid of the
dog—exactly—but she was certainly startled. She hadn’t met many
dogs in her life, except a few that were kept by merchants in her
neighborhood as guard dogs. Those dogs were worth being afraid of.
This specimen, with his vacuous brown eyes, wagging fluff of a
tail, and floppy ears, didn’t appear to be terrifying. In point of
fact, he seemed sort of bouncy and happy and pleased with the
world, himself, and the three humans in his vicinity.

“Well, there you are, Conk!” Alex sounded
delighted. “I wondered where you’d got yourself off to.”

Kate’s assumption that the dog—Conk? What a
peculiar name—belonged to the English family was confirmed by
Alex’s next action. He reached down, grabbed an end of the stick,
and began a growling tug-of-war with the dog for possession of the
stick. Kate couldn’t distinguish one growl from the other. Her
astonishment that Alex English, refined gentleman farmer, could
play with a dog warred with her left-over alarm at the dog’s abrupt
appearance in her life.

Mary Jo laughed with delight.

Kate slammed a hand over her thundering
heart and watched man and dog wrestle over the stick. Nuts. She
hated being startled like that. Since Alex was occupied, she turned
to Mary Jo. “I presume that’s your dog?”

“Alex’s.” Mary Jo shouted when Alex,
capturing the prize, reached back and flung the stick about twice
as far as Mary Jo had. “His name’s Conky. He was one of Romeo and
Juliet’s puppies, but he was scared of gunfire, so he couldn’t be
used as a hunting dog.”

“Ah . . . Romeo and Juliet?” Kate was
beginning to wonder if she’d stepped out of her own personal world
and into an alternate one where everything was exactly opposed to
anything she’d ever known. Conky the dog, after sprinting
heroically after the stick, leaping low brush and bushes growing in
his way, made a flying jump and caught the stick right before it
landed. It was a spectacular catch, and Kate was impressed.

Mary Jo clapped and hollered, “Good catch,
Conk!” She turned to Kate. “Romeo and Juliet are Mr. Howell’s
hunters. Alex bought Conky from him because Mr. Howell’s dogs are
supposed to be the best pointers around, but Conky isn’t. He’s a
dunce when it comes to hunting.”

“Why did Alex name him Conky?”

Mary Jo’s smile widened. “It was because
Alex was trying to teach him to catch. You know, when you throw a
dog a scrap of food, and he catches it in mid-air?”

Kate didn’t know, but she was willing to
accept this tidbit of dog lore on faith. “Ah,” she said. “Yes, but
. . .”

“It’s because Conky didn’t understand. He’d
wait until the bone or the bit of biscuit conked him on the head
before he’d realize it was meant for him.”

“I see.” She eyed the dog, who was racing
back to his master as if the trip was the most important of his
life.

“He learned eventually, but, Alex still
claims Conky’s as dumb as dirt. And he still doesn’t have a good
hunter, either.”

Mary Jo’s laughter rippled out on the spring
air, reminding Kate of tiny white flowers, from which fanciful
imagery, she presumed she was losing her mind, if she hadn’t
already lost it. Kate Finney couldn’t afford to get fanciful. “I
see. Um, and Alex goes hunting often?”

“Oh, sure.” Conky arrived at Alex’s feet
with a slide and a shower of dirt, and Mary Jo leaped back to avoid
getting her skirt spattered with flying pebbles and dust. “He hunts
ducks and geese and deer and other game. You know, keeps meat on
the table and all that.”

“Ah. I didn’t know that.” She hadn’t known
that rich men had to shoot their meals, for that matter. She
observed Alex and his no-good hunting dog for a few minutes, and
came up with another assumption. He probably didn’t have to shoot
his meals. He probably did it because he liked hunting. Or he was
miserly and didn’t want to pay more for food than he had to.

Scratch that one. Alex English might annoy
the life out of Kate on a regular basis, but he definitely wasn’t a
tightwad. He was more generous than any other person she’d ever
met, if it came to that.

Alex held the stick up so that Conky
couldn’t get it. The dog jumped on him, smearing Alex’s trousers
with dirty doggy prints, and Alex laughed ruefully. “Down, Conky!
Behave yourself. You need to meet someone.” He turned to Kate.
“Kate Finney, meet Conky English, the low-down, no-good, non-hunter
of a hunting dog. But he’s a good boy in spite of his defects and
shortcomings, and even if he isn’t the brightest candle in the
box.”

To Kate’s astonishment, the
dog obeyed its master and got down. He even sat on his
black-and-white-spotted rump and looked up at Kate, his tongue
lolling. She’d never seen a dog do
that
, either. Because the dog was
gazing at her with huge, pleading eyes, and because his feathery
tail was whipping up a dust storm behind him, Kate said, “Er,
hello, Conky. Good doggie.”

“Shake, Conk,” Alex commanded.

The dog lifted a paw for Kate to shake. She
did it, thoroughly charmed. “Did you teach him to do that,
Alex?”

“Sure did. It’s about the only trick he
knows. He’s a total failure at what he’s supposed to be, which is a
hunting dog, but he’s friendly and shakes hands like a champ.”

“He’s an expert at fetching,” Kate said,
feeling defensive on Conky’s behalf.

“He is now.” Alex laughed. “We had some
awful battles at first. He didn’t mind fetching, but bringing
things back again was another matter. It took me forever to teach
him to return the items he fetched.”

“Is that true, Conky?” Kate knelt beside the
dog, who indicated his appreciation by licking her face. Laughter
bubbled up in her, spontaneous and unexpected. “Ew!”

“Hey, Conk, lay off the lady.” Alex spoke
sternly, but Kate heard the laugh in his voice.

“He’s a good, good doggie,” crooned Kate.
“And he fetches beautifully now, no matter how long it took him to
learn how.”

“Huh,” said Alex.

When Kate arose, she saw that he was
watching her like a hawk, a sharp, assessing look in his eyes. What
did that mean? Had she done something wrong? Mary Jo spoke, and she
couldn’t dwell on her actions and Alex’s reactions.

“And he chases Mrs. Howell’s cats off, too,”
said Mary Jo, adding, “I like cats, but Mrs. Howell’s cats always
try to fight with Minnie.”

“Who is Minnie?” Kate felt as though she
were swimming in a confusion of names and wanted to sort them out
before her brain exploded.

“She’s our barn cat. She’s real nice.”

“Yeah? I don’t know any cats. Or dogs,
either.” Kate wondered how she could have lived to be this old
without encountering more cats and dogs. Oh, sure, she saw the same
mangy street animals all the time, and the Schneiders let a couple
of cats sleep on old towels in the back of their shop. Those
felines were tolerated because they kept the rodents out of the
butcher shop. Still, Kate didn’t think of those working-class cats
as anybody’s pets. They were only scrambling to survive like
everyone else in Kate’s neighborhood.

“We’ve always got lots of barn cats. They
kill the mice and rats and gophers and stuff like that.” Mary Jo
shuddered delicately.

Kate didn’t think that a cat doing its duty
and killing vermin was anything to shudder about. “That’s their
job, I guess.”

“I guess so. And Minnie just had four
kittens.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe you’d like to have one.” Mary Jo
looked as if she considered this a brilliant suggestion and a
kindhearted offer on her part.

“Don’t burden Kate with any more problems,”
Alex advised, smiling, but meaning it. “She’s got her hands full
already.”

“Little kittens aren’t any trouble,” Mary Jo
protested.

They would be trouble in Kate’s life.
Sometimes Kate thought that if she had to handle one more little
thing, even something so little as a kitten, she’d crumple up under
the weight of her responsibilities. She glanced quickly at Alex,
her gaze got stuck on his, and all at once she perceived something
that left her breathless.

He understood.

It was impossible—and wonderful. He
understood. Alex English, of all unlikely people in the universe,
understood Kate and her life and her problems and her need to have
no pets.

“Drop it, little sister,” he said, tugging
on one of Mary Jo’s braids. “Kate doesn’t want a kitten, and that’s
that.”

“Well,
I
think kittens are more adorable
than any nasty old cows or pigs,” Mary Jo said with a
sniff.

“I’m sure they are, but I don’t have room
for pets in my flat.” Kate spoke gently, hoping to convey gratitude
along with a firm rejection of the girl’s offer. She wasn’t sure
she achieved her aim, but Mary Jo skipped off in front of them, so
she guessed it didn’t matter.

“Don’t mind my pesky sister,” Alex said,
slowing down even as Mary Jo sped up, followed by the dog, who
wanted to play.

“I don’t. I think she’s nice.”

“She’s been very sheltered.”

“Yeah?” Kate glanced up at him again, hoping
she wouldn’t get trapped by his beautiful eyes this time. “I wish .
. .” But she decided not to finish the sentence, because it might
sound as if she were whining. It was true, though. She wished
somebody’d bothered to shelter her a little once or twice.

She felt Alex’s hand on her arm, and her
heart sped up and her skin got warm. “I wish you’d been more
sheltered, too, Kate.” His voice was deep and soft, and it made
Kate’s insides puddle up and steam. “Life hasn’t been fair to you
or your mother.”

Kate swallowed. “Yeah, well, we’re doing
okay.”

His chuckle did its usual damage to her
composure. “Don’t get all defensive on me, Kate. You’re doing
better than okay. You’re doing wonderfully, all things
considered.”

She didn’t believe him. Worse, she didn’t
believe he meant it.

“I mean it, Kate,” he said, as if he knew
exactly what she’d been thinking. Which he had.

This was a serious problem. Kate feared it
was destined to grow larger, too, and she didn’t know what to do
about it. Sometimes, she thought that meeting Alex English had been
the best thing ever to happen to her. At other times, she thought
it had been the worst. Most of the time, she feared both statements
were the truth, which was absolutely, dreadfully, drastically,
miserably awful.

Chapter Thirteen

Dinner at the English family farm was served
at six o’clock. According to Alex, this was earlier than most
society folks dined, but farmers had to get up early in the morning
and go out and plow fields and milk cows and do all the other
chores that constituted the farming life.

Kate forked up a bite of potatoes and gravy.
“So far, I haven’t seen you do anything like that.”

Mary Jo laughed heartily. So did Mrs.
English. Mrs. Finney frowned at her daughter, and Kate got
embarrassed. Louise, who was serving the delicious dinner that had
been cooked by Mrs. Gossett, sniffed.

“That’s only because I’ve been successful,”
Alex told her. “And I’ve been taking a holiday to help organize the
Exposition. That’s work, too, you know.”

Slipping him a surveying glance out of the
corner of her eyes, Kate decided he wasn’t mad at her for being so
undiplomatic. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. What I meant
was that I thought farmers had to do all sorts of hard work, and
that they worked from dawn to dark every day, and never had any
time off.”

“Sort of like you, in other words.”

She could tell by the laugh in his voice and
the grin on his face that he wasn’t mad at her. That being the
case, Kate decided not to blow her stack at him for saying
something that she considered moderately insulting, although she
couldn’t have said why, since it was the truth. She grinned back.
“Yeah. Sort of.”