She was kissing him heedlessly when he clasped her arms and roughly pushed her back. "Emily, we'd better stop."
She felt flushed and swollen all over. Prudence took an effort. She still saw nothing but unrelieved blackness, but in it she heard his strident breathing.
"He's going to know," she whispered shakily.
"Then sit back where you were." He pressed her against her own wall and slid back to his. She drew her knees up to her clubbing heart while Tom let one leg stretch flat, hoping to appear natural when the door opened. But she realized they were about to be given away.
"I'll be blushing."
"Then tell him I kissed you and I'll apologize to him and say it was the beer."
"I can't tell him that!"
"Then slap me." A swift motion, and suddenly he was on all fours before her, groping for her hand, kissing it fast before putting it on his rough cheek. "Quick! Haul off and give it to me good so it'll leave a mark."
"Oh, Tom, I can't—"
"Quick! Now!"
"But—"
"Now!"
She slapped him so hard he plunked backward and yowled, "Ouch!" just as the door flew open. He looked up into the inquisitive faces of Tarsy, Charles, and the others. Emily's face was buried in her arms, but Tom had the presence of mind to spring immediately from the closet into the light where the stinging shape of her slap glowed on his cheek. Nursing it, he growled, "That's what comes of trying to make friends with your competitors." Clumping away without offering a hand to help Emily up, he groused to Charles, "You can have her. Bliss!"
Emily was no good at duplicity; she had to get out of Tom's house immediately or give herself away. She begged off with an early-morning veterinary call and Charles left with her within minutes after the episode in the closet.
Once out in the cold night she could breathe again but her voice sounded strained, even to her own ears.
"Charles, I don't want to go to any more of those parties."
"But they're only innocent fun."
"I hate them!"
"I think it's Tom Jeffcoat you hate."
"Charles, he kissed me in that closet. He kissed me!"
"I know. He apologized to me for it, and said he'd had a couple too many beers."
"Don't you care?" she demanded exasperatedly.
"Care?" He took her arm and stopped her in the middle of the street. "Emily, it was just a game. A silly game. I thought if you two spent five minutes in that dark closet you might come out laughing at yourselves and the way you've been acting ever since he got to town, setting sparks off one another."
Oh, they'd set sparks off one another, all right, but Charles was too trusting to see it. To him it had been just a game, but to Emily it had been much more. It had been a threat and a thrill and a myriad of forbidden feelings so new they left her stunned.
By the time they reached her home she was not only shaken, but angry.
"What kind of a man lets his best friend kiss his fiancée and laughs it off?"
"This kind." Charles grabbed her arm, spun her against himself, and kissed her as forcefully as Tom had. Releasing her, he said throatily, "I love you, Emily, in spite of the fact that you can't treat my best friend civilly."
Minutes later Emily slipped into bed beside Fannie and lay like a fresh-hewn plank, staring up at the ceiling with the quilt edge coiled in both fists beneath her chin. She closed her eyes and saw what she had seen in the closet: nothing. Only blackness, which heightened all her other senses. She had felt him, tasted him, smelled him. Oh, his smell!
She released the quilt and pressed both palms to her nose and sucked in any lingering trace of him that might remain on her skin. Even now on her palms, she recognized it. It was no scent and all scent—clothing, hair, hay, leather, and man in potpourri. Funny, she could not remember what Charles smelled like. But Tom…
She rolled to her belly, cupping her breasts in an effort to stop them from aching.
He touched you here and you came alive.
Only because it was dark and forbidden.
It was what you've wanted since that day on the turntable.
No.
And the night he found you crying.
No.
Yes.
I never intended to kiss him. Not even when I walked into that closet. I only wanted to prove I was no prude.
And you did, didn't you?
I never meant to cheat Charles.
You didn't cheat Charles. You only found out what was lacking between the two of you.
The terrifying thought kept Emily awake most of the night.
* * *
Chapter 12
«^»
The following morning Emily awakened as she had slept—troubled. When she was troubled she wanted to be in only one place: with the animals. She dressed in woolen britches, jacket, and bobcap and slipped from the house before anyone else was up. A new snow had begun falling, brittle and icy. Flat-footed, she skated through it, head hanging, hands buried in her rib pockets.
Inside, the stable was warm, pleasant. Familiarities soothed—the fecund smell, the morning routine, the greetings of the horses, who turned their great heads as she spoke inanities and bumped past their broad bellies while feeding and watering them.
Edwin came at his usual time.
"Up early," he observed.
"Yes," she replied spiritlessly, avoiding his gaze.
"Got the chores done already."
"Yes."
"Anything wrong?"
"Oh, Papa…" She went into his arms, closed her eyes, and gulped at the lump of apprehension in her throat. "I love you."
He drew back and held her by both arms. "Do you want to talk to your old papa about it?"
She gazed into his caring eyes, tempted. But maybe she had blown last night out of proportion. Maybe it was nothing more than a kiss in a closet, a silly game already forgotten by Tom Jeffcoat. Though her father's invitation was sincere, in the end she shook her head.
To his credit, Edwin asked no questions. He left Emily to herself and stayed out of the office, where she holed up with her books. But The People's Home Library lay between her elbows as she stared unseeingly at the overflowing pigeonholes of the scarred desk, her thumbs pressed against her chin … thinking … thinking … tangled with emotions.
A murky dawn had scarcely grayed the windows when the inset door opened and Tom Jeffcoat marched into the office in lengthy strides, a man with an objective. He spun Emily's chair and pulled her from it straight into his arms.
"Tom, I've—"
He stopped her protest with a kiss. Unapologetically. Blatantly. Without hiding in anyone's closet.
Stunned, she forgot to resist, but stood in his arms letting him kiss her until the feelings of last night rose afresh within her. In time common sense prevailed and she arched away, pushing at the thick sleeves of her sheepskin jacket.
"Tom, my fath—"
"I know." He cut her off again, bending her backward like a strung bow until he felt her remit, then drawing her up with their mouths locked. He kissed her as he had last night—tongue and lips and enough wetness to wash away logic. He caught her unfortified, spreading his taste into her mouth with a straightforward appeal she could not withstand.
By the time they parted to search one another's eyes, her resistance had evaporated.
Out of the gray murk of dawning complications splashed a golden moment of thoughtlessness, while they immersed themselves in one another—young, unchary, and greedy. His tongue came strong against hers, and she opened to him gladly, tasting him as one learning to appreciate a new flavor. The flavor was intrinsically "Tom Jeffcoat," as individual as the flecks of color in his blue eyes. He had shaved, smelled of soap and cold air and old sheepskin—not new smells, only a combination individualized by him.
The kiss changed tone, became a grazing exploration of softness and swimming heads while passing minutes brought a new sortie of heart thrusts within them both. They parted, gazi
ng deep again, introducing a tardy question of willingness before coming together again with more fervid intentions. Her arms took him hard around the neck, crossing upon his thick, standing collar; his doubled around her back, fingers spread like starfish along her ribs.
They imbibed the myriad textures of one another—wet tongues, silky inner lips, smooth teeth—as they had not last night with the threat of discovery but a footstep beyond a closet door.
She thought his name—Tom … Thomas—and felt the wondrous upheaval of desire blur the edges of discretion.
He thought of her as he always had—tomboy … the one I least suspected would ever light such a fire in me.
His palms rode her back, full width and breadth, over crossed suspenders and her brother's rough shirt and the waistband of woolen britches, then slid up to her shoulder blades in search of a safe place to moor. They hooked her shoulders from behind while he struggled for control.
When the kiss ended they studied each other at close range. Amazed. Quite unprepared for the swift response each had triggered in the other.
"I didn't sleep much," he divulged in a sandpapery voice.
"Neither did I."
"This is going to be complicated."
She drew a shaky breath and fought to be sensible. "You take a lot for granted, Tom Jeffcoat."
"No," he answered simply, admitting what she would not. "I waited a long time for the attraction to die, but it didn't. What was I supposed to do?"
"I don't know. I'm still a little stunned." She laughed disbelievingly.
"Do you think I'm not?"
When he would have kissed her again she retreated. "My father…" She glanced toward the door and put distance between herself and Tom, but he breached it, taking her elbow, pursuing as if compelled by some uncontrollable force.
"Last night when you couldn't sleep, what did you think about?" he wanted to know.
She wagged her head in earnest appeal, backing away. "Don't make me say it."
"I will, before we're through. I'll make you say everything you think and feel for me." She backed into something solid and he closed in, bending to her even as his body came flush against hers. She lifted on tiptoe and embraced him. They kissed hard and wide-mouthed, propelled by the incredible attraction from which they both still reeled.
In the middle of the kiss, Edwin entered the office. "Emily, do you know where—" His words died.
Tom swung about, his lips still wet, one hand trailing at the small of Emily's back.
"Well…" Edwin cleared his throat, glancing from one to the other. "I hadn't thought about knocking on my own office door."
"Edwin," Tom said gravely, in greeting. The single word held neither excuse nor apology, but outright acknowledgment. He remained as he was, with his arm around Emily while her father's eyes skipped between the two of them.
"So this is what was bothering you this morning, Emily."
"Papa, we…" There was little excusable about the scene so she gave up trying.
Tom spoke calmly, filling the void. "Emily and I have some things to discuss. I'd appreciate it if you didn't mention this to anyone, especially to Charles, until we have a little time to sort out a few things. Will you excuse us, Edwin?"
Edwin looked incredulous and distempered by turns; first at being politely excused from his own office; second at leaving his daughter in the arms of someone other than Charles. After ten seconds of silent chafing, he turned and left. Tom glanced at Emily and found her red to the hairline, overly chagrined.
"You shouldn't have come here," she said. "Now Papa knows."
"I'm sorry, Emily."
"No, you're not. You faced him without the least shame."
"Shame! I'm not ashamed! What did you expect me to do, pretend it wasn't happening? I'm not fifteen anymore and neither are you. Whatever needs facing we'll face."
"I repeat, you take a lot for granted. What about me? What if I don't want people to know?"
He gripped her shoulders firmly. "Emily, we need to talk, but not here where anybody might walk in. Can you meet me tonight?"
"No. Charles is coming to dinner tonight."
"Afterwards?"
"He never leaves until ten."
"So meet me after ten. At my livery barn or the house or anywhere you say. What about down by the creek, right out in the open if you'll feel safer All we'll do is talk."
She drew free of his touch, for it beckoned as nothing she had ever experienced.
"I can't. Please don't ask me."
"Don't tell me you're going to pretend this never happened! Jesus, Emily, be honest with yourself. We didn't just pop off a couple of kisses in a closet and go away unaffected. Something is happening here, isn't it?"
"I don't know! It's too sudden, too … too…" Her eyes pleaded for understanding.
"Too what?"
"I don't know. Dishonest. Dangerous. And doesn't it bother you, about Charles?"
"How can you ask such a thing? Of course it bothers me. My stomach is in knots right now, but that doesn't mean I'll turn away from it. I need to know your feelings and to come to grips with some of my own, but we need some time. Meet me, Emily, tonight after ten."
"I don't think so."
"I'll wait for you down by the creek where the boys always fish in the summer, near the big cottonwoods behind Stroth's place. I'll be there till eleven." Moving close, he took her head in both hands, covering her ears and the sides of her red bobcap, resting his thumbs beside her mouth. "And try to stop looking as if you've just broken every one of the Ten Commandments. You really haven't done anything wrong, you know." He landed a light kiss on her lips and left.
* * *
She felt as if she'd done plenty wrong—all that day and into the evening, while she made up a lie about the veterinary call that had never existed, when Charles asked how it had gone. While they ate roast beef and vegetables and gravy; and played cribbage with Fannie and Frankie; and while she avoided her father's eyes, and breathed a sigh of relief when he went upstairs to sit with Mother instead of joining in the game; and while Charles kissed her good night and left at quarter to ten. And afterwards, as she told Fannie she'd put away the cards and the coffee cups, and suggested Fannie just go on up to bed.
The house grew still. Emily stood at the window facing the creek and Stroth's place, imagining Tom there kicking at the snow, peering into the shadows, waiting for her. She could walk to the cottonwoods in less than ten minutes, but what then? More illicit kissing? More forbidden caresses? More guilt?
It was undignified. And Charles deserved better. It was the kind of thing done by women of questionable reputation.
So she told herself all the while she exchanged button-top shoes for cowboy boots, slipped a hip-length coat over her full-skirted dress, and tugged on her old red bobcap, jamming her hair beneath its ribbing.
This is wrong.
I cannot stop it.
You can, but you won't.
That's right. I can, but I won't.
Papa always did call you willful.
Papa already knows, and he said nothing.
That's rationalizing, Emily, and you know it! He's waiting for you to explain yourself.
How can I explain what I don't understand?
She tiptoed through the parlor and slipped outside, soundlessly. The day's sleet had turned to snow—fluffy as eiderdown. It fell yet, in a path straight as a plumb line through the windless night, building up level on every surface it touched. Beneath it, the icy layer crunched with each of Emily's footsteps. Upon it her skirts swept with a sound like an uninterrupted sigh. The moon hid. The sky hugged close, lit from within itself by the thick white dapples it shed. Here and there a window created a gold ingot, but most were dark in a silent, deserted world.
She came to Stroth's place, cut around his house and along his woodpile with its frosting of white, past a forlorn grindstone left out in the weather, beyond his outbuildings to an open meadow where footsteps marked someone's recent pas
sing. She followed them, placing her own within his—long strides, longer than her natural ones—feeling an uncustomary delight in merely walking where he had gone. Ahead, the cottonwoods created shadowless shapes against the white night: They looked warm, blanketed. From beside them a form separated itself—tall, capped in black, standing still as a pedestal, waiting.
Emily stopped, detailing the euphoria brought about by his presence. It was novel and acute in its magnitude. She didn't recall ever feeling it at the appearance of Charles, nor exalting in something so mundane as following the footsteps he had made in the snow. She was a sensible girl who thought it wholly sensible to marry Charles. But sense was a stranger as she approached Tom Jeffcoat.
Behind him the creek ran, open yet, making night music that joined the sigh of her skirts as she continued toward him. With an arm's length to go, she stopped.
"Hello," he said quietly, reaching out two gloved hands.
"Hello," she said, giving him her fat-mittened ones.
"I'm glad you came. I didn't think you would." He wore a black Stetson that had kept the snow off his collar, but the shoulders of his sheepskin jacket were dusted with white.
"Have you been here long?"
"An hour or so." It was only 10:30. She could not help being pleased.
"You must be freezing."
"My toes … a little. It doesn't matter. Can I kiss you?"
She chuckled in surprise. "You're asking this time?"
"I promised we'd only talk. But I want to kiss you."
"If you didn't, I'd be disappointed."
They came together easily, no rush, not clutching, only a tipping of his hat brim and a lifting of her chin, their covered hands scarcely crushing the snowflakes on each other's clothing. To Emily it was more devastating that the frantic clutches she'd shared with him before. Three times she'd kissed him since their physical awareness of one another had taken hold, and each had been different. The first time, in the closet, fear had stopped up her throat. This morning in the office surprise had numbed her at his first appearance. But this was different, full agreement, no hurry. When their mouths parted she remained beneath the shelter of his hat brim, where their breaths mingled as ribbons of white in the cold air.
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