Gingham Mountain (13 page)

“This isn’t the way back to Sour Springs.” She looked at the trail they were slowly leaving.

“Thank goodness you’re here, Hannah,” Grant said with mock relief. “I’ve only lived here for twelve years. I might not be able to find my way back to town without your able assistance. After all, you’ve been a resident of Sour Springs for. . .how many hours now?”

Hannah fairly vibrated with annoyance. She was really tired of Grant’s overly polite chiding. “I
demand
to know where you’re taking me, Mr. . . .Grant.”

“That’s not my name, you know.” Grant hi-upped to the horses and slapped the reins gently across their backs. The traces jingled; the horses picked up speed. He didn’t turn back.

Hannah looked at him. “Grant isn’t your name?”

The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile as rude as it was unamused. “No, Mr. . . .Grant isn’t my name.” He greatly exaggerated the pause between Mister and Grant.

“Excuse me for having manners, Mr. . . .Grant.” Hannah could feel that one coming, but she couldn’t stop herself. “If you don’t want me stumbling over your name, then you should pick a proper one.” Hannah settled in her seat prepared, now that she’d spoken her mind, to ignore him all the way to town.

“You’re very brave for a woman who is probably being taken out into the wilderness to be abandoned.” Grant rested the reins on his ragged pants, the knees patched and the patches worn through. The calm, cooperative horses seemed to know the way without much guidance from him. Maybe he dumped people off in the wilderness
regularly, especially unwanted children.

Hannah grabbed the seat and whirled to face him. “I knew this wasn’t the way to town!”

“Well, that’s a nice surprise.” Grant shoved hair out of his eyes. “There
is
something you finally know. What a relief.”

“I’m sorry about the potatoes.” Hannah should have been more afraid, but for some reason the only feeling Grant seemed to stir in her was anger. She clenched her fists in her lap. “How many times do I have to say that?”

“How about once for every one of my kids who didn’t get a full belly because of you.”

“Marilyn made more!” Hannah knew she was out of line, but he kept goading her and she’d apologized nearly once per child already.

“That’s good then. We grew enough potatoes to feed the whole family several times over. It’s probably best to burn some of them up. If it weren’t for the stink—”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! That’s three. How many children did you have again? Too many for a mere schoolteacher to count at a glance. Was it six? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“At least you chased down the ones you spilled all over the floor. Having you crawl around under the table was kind of like having a pet. The kids have been wanting a dog.”

Hannah didn’t hit him, and he was too dense to know what a lucky man he was. “Not everyone was born being at home in a kitchen, Mr. . . .Grant.” Okay, she was going to stop doing that. It went against the grain, but she was going to have to start calling him Grant without the mister.

“Yes, Missssss. . .Cartwright, I could see that cleaning a chicken was a mystery to you. I believe you ended up wearing the few feathers you managed to separate from the poor bird.”

“I have skills. . .Grant. They just don’t extend to gutting chickens.” She could thread a weaving loom so fast no eyes could follow her fingers.
She hoped to never have to thread one again.

“No need to point that out, Hannah. I got that plain as day.”

Hannah sniffed at him. “Cleaning a chicken is disgusting. I refuse to be ashamed of not having such dreadful knowledge.”

“You do admit the hypocrisy of
eating
a chicken when you can’t bear the thought of getting it cooked.”

“I admit no such thing. I’m not stupid. I’m just untrained. I could learn to clean a chicken and boil potatoes without scorching them and—”

“And to stop slicing the bread just one tiny, little second before you get to your hand.”

Hannah looked down at her throbbing thumb. Why had Grant insisted on bandaging it himself? Surely his daughters usually handled the nursing. She had the clumsy knotted rag on her hand to prove Grant didn’t know what he was doing. And she was left with the warmth of his hands on her—a warmth that lasted long after he’d quit touching. Of course Grant had been obnoxious the whole time he’d done his crude doctoring, but Benny had pressed against her side and murmured comforting words.

And all of that might have been forgotten, since the girls took over and did the meal with her safely settled out of the way, if she hadn’t tried to redeem herself by pulling the pot of coffee out of the coals and—

“How exactly did you manage to set your skirt on fire?”

Hannah was done with being badgered. “You were right there and you know good and well how it happened!”

The team slowed as it began pulling them slightly upward. The trail didn’t go right up the side of the hill; it slanted across the face of it. They were sloped sideways with Hannah on the uphill side, and they skidded occasionally on spots left slippery with melting snow. Hannah couldn’t stop herself from leaning hard against Grant, despite her struggle to keep her distance. Grant’s shoulder was like solid iron beside her. Warm, solid iron.

Grant seemed supportive of her efforts to stay away from him because he gave her the occasional strange look that she imagined must mean, “Get over.”

But now she understood what Grant had meant about the treacherous trail. The good side of that was Grant was too occupied driving the team to torment her.

With a sigh, Hannah wondered how she’d come to a point in her life that she had to choose between hugging up against a man who delighted in insulting her or rolling off a cliff. One prospect was as unpleasant as the other. In the end she just clung to the seat.

Just when she thought her spine had taken such a beating that she’d be permanently tilted to the left, they came out on top of the bluff, and Hannah could see the brightly lit windows of the little town of Sour Springs right at the bottom of the hill in front of them.

“I rode that horse nearly ten miles!”

“Zeb at the livery gave you directions?” Grant’s brow furrowed, and though his expression held its usual grouchiness, for the first time it wasn’t aimed at her.

“No, Zeb didn’t tell me. It was Harold at the general store. He said there was another way, but it was confusing.”

He pressed down on the wagon brake and sent the team over the crest. Now they were tilted sideways in Hannah’s direction.

“Ah, Harold.” Sawing the reins with one strong hand encased in a worn-out glove, he leaned hard on the brake and kept his eyes strictly on the trail ahead. “He’s easily confused.”

After a brief pause, Grant added, “But it was Zeb who rented you Rufus?”

Something in his tone made Hannah glance at him. “Was that the horse’s name? We were never introduced.”

Grant turned away from the crazy trail and grinned at her. It was definitely the first time he’d done that—of course he’d laughed at her quite a bit, but that wasn’t the same thing at all.

“
A swaybacked, gray horse with a white blaze, one white front leg, and a bad attitude?”

“There are, no doubt, several horses in the livery that fit that description.” Hannah had the sudden urge to protect Zeb, and she didn’t know why.

“Nope. I think Zeb saw an easy two bits and landed old Rufus slap on top of you.” Grant added in a grim tone that didn’t bode well for Zeb, “He hadn’t’a oughta done that.”

The trail canted. Grant leaned against her, and she didn’t think he was making the least effort to prevent the contact. She braced her arm against the seat and held them both on the wagon.

After far too long of brushing hard up against him, they reached the bottom of the bluff and within minutes were at the edge of Sour Springs.

“You can probably get the worst of that scorching out just by washing the skirt.” Grant paused while he straightened the team out and headed for the diner as if he already knew where she lived. Most likely he did. It was a small town. “You do know how to wash clothes, don’t you?”

Hannah would have given her first month’s salary, all twenty dollars of it, to have a washboard and a few minutes of freedom with Grant’s head at that moment. She glared at him, and he laughed in her face as he pulled the team to a halt.

He swung down and came around to help her. Hannah hurried to arrange her skirts and climb down before he got there. She didn’t so much climb down off the buckboard as she fell. Grant caught her.

He steadied her feet under her and said with a smug grin, “Thanks for the help with dinner, ma’am.” He deepened his Texas drawl and did his best, Hannah knew, to sound as dumb as a post. “Shore am glad we had a woman around for a change.”

Hannah didn’t have the energy to hit him. She stiffened her spine and became aware that Grant was still holding her up. He was so strong
she could imagine leaning on him forever.

Just because she’d made a fool of herself didn’t mean she wasn’t right about Grant and his children. “You have to do something about the conditions those children live in.”

Grant dropped his hands from her waist, far too slowly to Hannah’s way of thinking. He kept up the dumb act. “So you’re gonna let me keep ’em now? You just want me to keep ’em better. I reckon that’s progress.”

His comment surprised her because he was right. Somewhere in the middle of the girls mending her dress and making dinner in such a competent manner she
had
changed her mind. She had no intention of admitting that.

She also noticed Grant rubbing his hands on his pants leg again. Touching her must be repulsive. No doubt he’d wash his hands for an hour as soon as he got home. . .that was assuming the untidy man washed at all.

“Surely it doesn’t cost that much to add on a couple of bedrooms.” Hannah walked toward her boardinghouse wishing he would leave so she could go upstairs and be alone with her humiliation.

“It doesn’t cost much, just more than I have,” Grant said. “As I already told you, I could cut down the timber to build on, and it wouldn’t cost me nothing but time and a few aching muscles, but the stand of trees fit for building is on a slope so steep I’d have to risk my neck to get at ’em. My children have a roof to keep the rain off their heads and plenty to eat. Well, ’cept for today. Today was kinda slim pickins, what with you burning most of it to a cinder. I never knew how tricky all this woman stuff could be. Guess that’s cuz it all came so easy to me and it being so easy to teach to all my many mistreated children.”

Hannah whirled on him at his last dig. “I know I don’t have womanly skills! I accept that about myself.”

Suddenly Grant’s teasing smile faded, and he spoke so softly that it was almost a whisper. “When are you going to tell me how you got those scars, Hannah?”

A dog barked, breaking the silence that lay like death between them. Grant’s team shifted as they stood, and the hardware of the traces clinked together.

“That’s none of your business, Grant. I’m never going to talk about it and you shouldn’t have seen my. . .uh. . .shoulder uncovered.”

Grant’s eyes narrowed and Hannah prayed he’d let it go. He studied her, waiting, thinking, wondering. She saw his frustration. He wanted answers, but she wondered if maybe he also
didn’t
want to know. If he’d been an orphan, he knew children had stories they didn’t want to relive, either by speaking of their own experiences or listening to someone else’s. She thought of all she’d suffered at Parrish’s hands, and the words wanted to flood out. Her throat clogged shut with anger and pain and heartbreak. She understood all too well how Libby could choose to not talk. Sometimes the words were too awful to be spoken aloud.

“I know it’s none of my business.” Grant tugged off one glove and ran a finger over the seam Marilyn had sewn in Hannah’s dress. “It’s just that—”

“Go home, Grant.” She could do it. She could be tough and resist the temptation he offered to lean on his broad shoulder. She needed him to go away. This day and the kindness of his children was all she could handle. “Make sure you have your children in school tomorrow. If you keep them home, I’m going to—” Her voice broke.

Surprise flashed in his eyes, and she turned and marched toward the back door of the diner. He wasn’t allowed up, thank heavens. Tears burned behind her eyes and she hurried all the more. Hard fingers closed on her arm before she got inside.

She turned back only because he made her. She stared at the second button of his shirt, fighting back the unexpected tears and waiting in rigid silence for his sickening pity.

Grant tapped her chin until she lifted it and met his eyes. He said softly, “Let’s just hope you can teach school better’n you can cook.”

Hannah’s mouth gaped open on a gasp, and she made a fist that she would most likely have used on his smirking face if he hadn’t headed back for the buckboard, laughing like a maniac every step of the way.

He drove off with a jaunty wave.

She watched him go and noticed he went to Zeb’s livery instead of heading back up the steep trail. It took her a moment, but she realized she was standing in the alley behind the diner staring after the man. She whirled around and rushed inside. It was only as she climbed the stairs to her tiny, lonely room that she realized Grant had headed off a bout of tears by deliberately insulting her. It was by far the nicest thing he’d done so far.

And anyway, she desperately hoped she
could
teach school better than she cooked because she’d never done it before, either.