"If I stayed here any longer, you'd either have to convert me or run me out on a rail—probably right beside you, though. I am what I am, Miss Abigail, and steak sounds goddamn good right now."
"If you said it in any other way, I'm not sure I would believe you any more, Mr. Came—Mr. DuFrayne."
Her smile was broad now, and charmed him fully.
It was infinitely easier exchanging light badinage with him again. This, she knew, would get them safely through the evening ahead. But just then he swung his foot to the floor, leaned his dark, square palms on the edge of the seat, and with the now familiar grin all over one side of his face, said quietly, "Go fry the steak, woman."
And after all they'd been through, it was the last thing in the world that should have made her blush.
The sun fell behind the mountains while the steak was frying, and the front porch was cool and lavender-shadowed. Jesse DuFrayne sat there listening to the sounds of children playing "Run Sheep Run," drifting in on the wings of twilight. From the shrill babble he could hear occasional childish arguments: "No he didn't!… Yes, he did… He din't neither!…" Then a swell of argument again before the squabble was apparently settled and the sheep ran again in a peaceful fold. The smell of meat drifted out to him, augmented by an iron clank every now and then and an occasional tinkle of glassware. He got up lazily and limped inside and there she was, coming out of the pantry with a heap of plates and glasses and cups balanced against her midriff. They pulled her blouse tight against her breasts and he admired the sight, then raised his eyes to find she'd caught him at it. He grinned and shrugged.
"Can I help?" he asked.
Oh, he was just full of surprises tonight, she thought. But she handed him the stack of dishes anyway.
When he turned toward the kitchen table she surprised him.
"No, not there. Put them in the dining room. That table is never used anymore. I thought we might tonight."
His moustache teased. "Is it going to be a little going-away party then?"
"Rather."
"Whatever you say, Abbie." He moved off toward the dining room.
"Just a minute, I'll get the linen."
"Oh? It's a linen occasion too?"
She came with a spotless, stiff cloth and asked, "Can you pick up those candlesticks too?"
"Sure." He got the pair off the table, along with his other burden, and held everything while she snapped the cloth out in the air. He watched it billow and balloon and fall precisely where she wanted it to.
"Why, that's the damnedest thing I've ever seen!"
"What is?" she asked, leaning over to smooth the already perfect surface of the cloth.
"Well if I tried that, the thing would probably go in the opposite direction and carry me off with it." He cocked his head and hung on to his stack of dishes and watched her little butt as she leaned over the table edge that way, ironing wrinkles with her hands. He snapped back up straight when she turned around.
"Do you want to finish this or stand holding those things all night?"
"I want to see you do that once more," he said.
"What?"
"Flip that thing up and get it to land exactly centered like that. I'll make you a bet that you can't do it again."
"You're insane. And you're going to smash the rest of my dishes if you don't set them down."
"What do you wanna bet?"
"Now you want me to take up gambling on top of everything else?"
"Come on, Abbie, what will you put up? One throw of the cloth."
"I've put up with you, that's enough!" She smiled engagingly.
"How about one photographic portrait against one good home-cooked meal?" he suggested, thinking it would bring him back to Stuart's Junction again with a plausible excuse for coming.
What in the sam scratch got into Abigail McKenzie she couldn't say, but the next thing she knew, she was taking that tablecloth back off the table, flapping it high again while he watched. Of course, the cloth landed crooked this time… and the next… and the next… and by then they were both laughing like loons when it really wasn't
that
hilarious!
The dishes clinked against Jesse's chest as he mirthfully teased, "See, I told you you'd never be able to do it again with one toss. I win."
"But I did it the first time, so it doesn't matter. It was hardly fair after all the air currents were stirred up.
Anyway, what am I doing here flapping a tablecloth like a fool?"
"Damned if I know, Abbie," he quipped, and finally set his stack down.
And for the first time in her life she thought, damned if I know either.
"I'd better turn those steaks," she said, and went back to the kitchen.
He followed in a moment with the flat-bottomed glasses she'd given him. "Hey, if this is a party, shouldn't we use champagne glasses and drink the champagne Jim brought?"
"Champagne?"
"I opened the bag while you were gone, and good old Jim brought you champagne. Just in time for my going away party. What do you say we pop it open?"
"I'm afraid I don't drink spirits, and I don't think you—" But things were different now. He was respectable. "You may have champagne if you wish."
"Where are the glasses?"
"Those are all I have."
"Okay, what's the difference?" And he went off to put them back on the table.
He opened the bottle out in the backyard, using a knife blade, and she was sure that the whole blasted town could hear that cork pop—not that too many of them would recognize the sound.
"All set?" he asked, coming back in. She took off her apron, preceded him into the dining room carrying the beef steaks and vegetables on a wide, ivory-colored platter. But all that was there for light were the candles.
"Bring the lantern, too," she said over her shoulder, "it's growing dark." He grabbed if off the kitchen table and came behind her, swinging none too jauntily on his impaired leg, oil sloshing in one container, champagne in the other.
"The matches…" she said.
"Coming up."
It struck her that by now he knew where many things were kept in her house and that she liked having him know. She suffered a sudden, wistful pride, watching while he fetched the matches as if he were lord of the manor come to light its fires.
"Sit down, Abbie, I'll do the honors. I'm in charge of the table anyway tonight." He lit not only the lantern but the two candles also, casting the room into blushing rosiness around them. His hand captivated her with its long fingers curled around the match, the dark hairs sweeping down from his forearm and wrist as he blew out the match. The table was twice the size of that in the kitchen, but he had set their two places cozily at right angles. "You'll have to forgive me, Abbie, I'm not dressed for the occasion," he said, checking his buttons as he sat down.
She smiled. "Mr. DuFrayne, for you that
is
dressed."
He patted his ribs and laughed. "I guess you're right."
On his plate she put steak and round, browned potatoes and old gold carrots, and he eyed them all while she served, then began eating with obvious relish, groaning, "God, I'm hungry. Dinner wasn't—" But they weren't going to bring up dinner. He shrugged and went on eating.
"Dinner was interrupted," she finished for him, raising an eyebrow. She'd never in her life seen anyone who enjoyed eating quite like he. Surprisingly, he did it quietly, using the proper moves, using the knife for cutting only, not for stabbing with and eating from. He used his linen napkin instead of his sleeve, relaxed back in his chair when he drank. Abbie could not help comparing this pleasant, polite man to the scoundrel who'd criticized her during those first meals she'd served him. Why couldn't he have been this smiling and amenable right from the first?
"I'll miss this good food when it's not available anymore," he said, as if reading her mind and reinforcing her newly formed opinions of him.
"Like most things, once beyond reach, my cooking will seem better than it truly was."
"Oh, I doubt that, Abbie. Once we stopped fighting at mealtime, I really enjoyed your food."
"I didn't know that before. I thought there was nothing you enjoyed so much as a good… or should I say a
bad
fight."
"You're partially right. I do enjoy a good fight. I find it invigorating, good for the emotional system. A good fight purges and leaves you clean to start over again." He peered up impishly at her, adding, "Kind of like liver."
She laughed and had to snatch the napkin to her lips quickly to keep the food from flying out. Ah, she would miss his wit after all. When she could swallow and speak once more, she did so with a bedeviling smile for him.
"But does your emotional system need purging quite so often, Mr. DuFrayne?"
He laughed openly, leaning back in his chair in pure enjoyment. He loved her this way, at her witty best, and took his turn at thinking he would miss this lively banter they'd grown so skilled at tossing back and forth. "Your wry wit is showing, Abbie, but I've come to love it. It has spiced up the days as much as the little fights we had now and then." Behind his glass his eyes looked all black, the night light not bright enough for her to make out those hazel flecks she knew so well by now.
"
Little
fights?" she returned. "
Now and then
?"
He stabbed a chunk of meat, eyeing her amusedly across the table. "I guess you got more than your share of my bad temper…" Here he brandished his fork almost under her nose. "But you deserved it, you know, woman."
She leveled him with a look of mock severity and pushed the fork aside with a tiny forefinger. "Quit pointing your meat at me, Jesse."
Too late she realized what she'd said. His expression turned to a suggestive smirk while her face grew scorching. Amused, he watched the blood rise from her chin to her hairline. He hadn't the decency to say something diverting, which would have been the chivalrous thing to do. But when had Jesse ever been chivalrous? He only sat back and used her ill-advised remark to his advantage, his teeth sparkling in a broad smile while she patted the napkin again to her lips and dropped her eyes to her plate, stammering for something to say. "I… I… did not deserve to… to have my best china thrown across my c… clean bedroom, and… and soup and glass all over everything."
He drew circles on his plate with the chunk of meat which had started all this, finally deciding to let her off the hook. He popped the meat into his mouth, studied the ceiling thoughtfully, and mused, "Now why the hell did I do that again, do you remember?"
This time his ridiculous innocent act caught her unaware. She laughed without warning and spit out a chunk of meat. It sailed clear across the way and landed on her clean linen tablecloth while she clasped her mouth with both palms and laughed until her shoulders shook.
He picked up the errant meat, laughing now too, and scolded, "Why, Miss Abigail McKenzie, you put this right back where it belongs!" Then he held it over her nose. Not quite believing it was herself acting so giddy, she obliged, finding it very hard to open one's mouth when one is laughing so hard.
She listened to a humorous recap of all the indignities he'd suffered at her hands, ending with his accusation that she'd tried to drown him with soup.
"So you grabbed the bowl and slurped like a hog at a trough," she finished.
"Aw, there's a new one—a hog at a trough. I'm a regular menagerie all rolled into one. Do you realize, Miss McKenzie, that you have called me by the names of more animals than Noah had on his ark?"
"I have?" She sounded surprised.
"You have."
"I have not!" But as she smirked, he started naming them.
"Goat, swine, baboon, hog… even louse." He held knife and fork very correctly, feigning a sterling table etiquette. "Now I ask you, Abbie, do I have the manners of a goat?"
"What about the liver?"
"Oh, that. Well, that night, as many others, just when I was ready to make peace with you, you brought that lethal liver. It's true, Ab, every time I made up my mind to be nice to you, you came charging in with some new scheme to make me miserable and mad at you." He wiped his mouth, hiding a smile behind the napkin while she realized how enjoyable it was to laugh at all of it now with him.
"But you know what, Abbie?" he asked, reaching for the champagne bottle. "You were a worthy adversary. I don't know how we put up with each other all this time, but I think we both deserved everything we got." He filled both of their glasses and said, "I propose a toast." He handed her a glass and looked steadily into her pansy-colored eyes. "To Abigail McKenzie, the woman who saved my life and nearly killed me, all at the same time."
His glass touched hers, and the dark knuckle of his second finger grazed her fairer one. She looked away. "I don't drink," she reiterated as the room grew hushed.
"Oh, no, of course you don't. You only try to kill wayward gunslingers." He still held his glass aloft, waiting for her. She felt silly denying him the right to end this all gracefully, which he'd been managing nicely all through their pleasant supper so far. And so she touched his glass and took a small, wicked sip and found it did not hurt her at all, only made her want to sneeze. So she took another, and did sneeze.
And they laughed together and he drained his glass and refilled it, and hers.
"You must return a toast of your own," he insisted, leaning back nonchalantly in his chair, "it's the only acceptable way."
Her eyes, meeting his, were violet in the soft light, registering deep thought. He wondered if she was remembering… as he was… the good times they'd shared since he'd been here. He wished that he could see what images went through her mind, for she looked thoroughly adorable tonight.
Abbie sat with her elbow resting on the table, the unfamiliar champagne bubbling before her eyes.
"Very well," she agreed at last, then sat a moment longer peering at him through the pale gold liquid, puzzling over how to say it. At last she lowered her glass enough to see his face above it and intoned quietly, "To Jesse DuFrayne, who actually admires my morals all the while he tries to sully them."