"What do you call this place?" he asked his newfound guide.
"We don't call it nothing," the fellow answered.
"You don't call it anything?"
Jesse looked thoughtful. "Well, this here hill is called Marrying Stone Mountain; that big one there that kind of shades us in the afternoon, it's called Squaw's Trunk; the one in the distance is Uncle Wilkie.”
Roe raised an eyebrow at the strange names but made no comment.
"The little crick that runs along here into the river is called Itchy Creek, 'cause the poison oak grows along it real bad. You got to be careful where you go into it. Our place is pretty near right on the creek bank. That's real good, 'cause I don't have to go far to fetch up the water."
Roe nodded vaguely. "What's the name of the nearest town?"
The big blond fellow shrugged. "There ain't no nearest town. There ain't no town at all."
Roe looked at him curiously. "There's no church, no school, no store?"
"The church and school's on the far side of the mountain. They got a store over there, too. They call that Marrying Stone."
Roe nodded. "Just like the mountain."
"No," the young man replied, "it's named for the Marrying Stone at the church." As if that explained everything.
Roe shook his head. This was definitely the Ozarks with its strange names and its truly simple folks.
"I cain't wait for you to meet Meggie," Jesse said.
"Meggie?"
"My sister. She's just going to love you."
Roe grinned. "Oh, really?" he said casually. He looked at Simple Jess as he walked ahead, his tall, straight back balancing the heavy weight of the Ediphone on his shoulder as if it were nothing. He tried to imagine a female version of Simple Jess. No doubt she'd be an Amazon.
"Is your sister like you?" he asked.
Jesse stopped in midstride and turned to him, his eyes wide with shock. "Oh, no! Ain't none of my family like me. I'm plumb unusual."
Roe was struck at the fervency of his declaration.
"Meggie," Jesse continued, "why she's about as smart as a person can be. She wins the spelling bee purt-near ever' time. And she was the only gal in the school that ever made it clear through that yellow fifth-grade reader. Meggie ain't nothing like me." His smile was one of sheer brotherly pride. "She knows near everything! But she don't put on much like she's better or nothing. She just likes me for myself. I suspect she'll take to you right off. You being my frien' and all."
Taking to him right off had proved to be a little more interesting than Roe had expected.
Sitting at the scarred, worn table in the tiny cabin, he had glanced over at barefooted Meggie Best and smiled. His long-ingrained sense of propriety and manners dictated that he make polite luncheon conversation while they waited for her father and brother.
"And did you make this piccalilli yourself?" His tone was intimate, barely above a whisper. "Because if you did, I will certainly want to taste it."
The young woman blushed prettily and lay a hand against her heart as if to still the butterflies that fluttered there. Curious at her reaction, he looked deeply into her eyes. They were not the dark, vivid blue of her brother's, but rather a clement sky color of blue and gray, as welcoming as a summer morning.
"I did stir this batch up, after the freeze," she admitted with shy modesty. "Though folks say I'm not much of a cook."
He raised an eyebrow. "These folks must be wrong," he assured her. "I am certain that your accomplishments are legend."
Meggie's eyes widened.
He watched her fingers tremble as she wound the clean cotton bandage around his hand.
He smiled. Her nervousness actually warmed him. He was reserved by nature and usually felt slightly uncomfortable in polite social situations with strangers. He had studied fashionable manners because they were necessary in his work. But he couldn't like august soirees and witty at-homes. The young woman here in the isolated cabin appeared as shy and sheltered as the most cosseted debutante. Instinctively, he felt a kinship with her.
"Please won't you allow me a small taste of your wonderful creation now, I don't believe I can wait for your brother to appear?" he asked in an exaggerated tone.
She raised her head and gazed at him, her expression curious. Roe was unsure of what it meant.
"The piccalilli," he said. "I'd love to sneak a little taste."
"Oh, the piccalilli."
The young woman grabbed a carved-out bone dipper and dished a huge portion of the relish in the old tin plate set on the table before him.
Roe sat staring at it for a long moment. He looked up to find her staring at him expectantly. He smiled. "I need an eating utensil," he said.
"You don't carry your own?" she asked, surprised.
"Why no, I don't."
"Here." She picked up a hollowed-out wooden dipper from her pocket. "You can use mine."
He stared at the primitive spoon, her spoon. It was old and the edge that touched the mouth was worn smooth with use, but it had a pretty little leaf design cut into the handle. Somehow it seemed so intimate to eat from it, but he had no other. He reached out with his freshly bandaged hand and gently took it from her.
"Thank you very much." Dipping into the soggy mass he brought the first taste of piccalilli to his lips.
He smiled at her. She swallowed nervously and jumped to her feet. "I'll fetch you a hunk of bread."
She hurried to the cupboard. He watched her, assessingly, curiously, and she went to the rough-finished safe on the far corner from the fireplace. Yes, he was right about her: healthy Scotch-Irish peasant stock, long, sturdy legs and buttocks ample to the point of generous. He allowed his gaze to linger there a bit longer than was necessary. Derrieres were the focus of all the fashion rage in the East. Women tied wire and horsehair contraptions on their backsides until they stood out with such prominence that it was said that a girl could rest a tea tray upon a fashionable bustle.
Gazing at the young Ozark woman's rounded behind in the thin homespun skirt, Roe doubted that horsehair or wire would ever be necessary for Meggie Best.
As she hurried back to the table, Roe allowed himself to consider the rest of her figure. Her bosom was not voluptuous, but the soft curves were certainly in evidence. She was high-breasted and even without the enhancements of a corset she appeared firm and round, as if she carried two lush, ripe peaches in her front shirt pockets.
She stopped in midstride. Roe realized that she had caught him staring. Guiltily, he dropped his eyes.
'The bread is a day old," she said brightly as she smeared it lavishly with a pale white cream in a jar. "If you sop it in the juice from the piccalilli, you won't be able to tell."
She was smiling warmly, welcoming now as she lay what appeared to be a half loaf of coarse brown bread on the blue tin dinner plate before him.
Roe glanced up at her and then took a bite of the bread. "Oh, Miss Best, the bread doesn't need sopping in the juice. It's quite good on its own."
She sighed with obvious pleasure.
"And this butter," Roe continued. "It's quite unusual, but I believe it to be the finest tasting that I have ever eaten."
"Oh, it's not butter," Meggie told him. "We don't have a cow. It's just bear grease, but it is pretty good fare."
"Bear grease?" Roe cleared his throat a little nervously. He casually set the bread down next to his plate and concentrated on the piccalilli.
Companionably, Meggie sat down in her place and dished herself some of the relish.
"How will you eat if I'm using your spoon?" he asked.
With a nervous little giggle she shrugged. "I can ladle it up with a piece of bread," she assured him.
The two smiled at each other uncomfortably across the table. Her color was prettily pink. Roe found his eyes were drawn to the sight. The barefoot young woman was actually quite comely. She seemed to be waiting for him to speak. The silence lingered.
"Do you like it?" she asked finally.
Realizing he had not complimented the cook, Roe scooped up a huge amount of the relish and shoveled it into his mouth. With deliberate charm he dramatically closed his eyes as if in ecstasy.
"Mmmmmmmm. Mmmmmmmm."
Meggie giggled.
Opening his eyes slightly, Roe shoveled in another large mouthful.
"I guess that means you like it?" Meggie asked anxiously.
Roe was feeling well disposed and friendly. He ignored the strange, sour aftertaste of the green tomato concoction and forced himself to take another bite.
"It tastes wonderful, marvelous, heavenly," he said extravagantly. "I don't believe I've ever eaten anything so palatable before."
His words were no more than standard dining-room compliments, but Meggie sighed with delight and laughed again. He really enjoyed hearing that sound.
They were grinning at each other now, strangely companionable. And it truly seemed quite natural when she got up and moved her ladder back chair around the corner of the table and closer to his own. For one fleeting moment a niggling feeling of concern pulled at him, but he ignored it. She was perhaps hard of hearing, he thought. Or maybe she was nearsighted like himself and found it necessary to be closer to converse. He didn't draw away.
Graciously he downed another bite of piccalilli. He'd barely had time to swallow before he felt the tentative touch of her hand on his own. A warm tingle traveled up his arm. He swallowed and turned to stare at her over the top of his spectacles.
"I'm so sorry you hurt your hand chopping wood," she said.
There was something about her backwoods accent that was charming, beguiling. The hairs stood up on the back of Roe's neck. He began feeling distinctly uncomfortable and yet enticed. Nervously, he glanced toward the door wondering what in the world was keeping Jesse.
"We all must use our hands to work," he answered her evenly. "Why even putting up this piccalilli involved using your own."
"Oh, Mr. Farley." Her words were a breathy whisper. The stars in her eyes shone as brightly as jewels. Pushing an errant strand of burnished blond hair away from her face, she nervously tucked it behind her ear.
Her reaction was curious. It was as if he had said something intimate, personal. He tried to remove his hand from her grasp, but she didn't easily relinquish it. The space between them crackled.
Roe pulled back and cleared his throat. Obviously making conversation in the Ozarks was different from the dining tables of the Bay State. He was unfamiliar with the strange air of warmth that surrounded him. It was friendliness on a level that was both seductive and a little bit menacing.
He smiled with excessive politeness at the young woman, hoping to dispel the unexpected closeness of the little cabin. He took another big bite of the piccalilli relish and savored it for a long moment before nodding.
"Very nice," he said.
She was gazing deeply into his eyes as if entranced.
"Oh, yes, it is very nice," she whispered.
Suddenly alert, Roe looked at Meggie curiously. Her comment was extremely strange. But nothing could have prepared him for the moment when she raised his knuckles to her lips and graced them with the gentlest of kisses.
J. Monroe Farley sat frozen in shock as the tremors resulting from the unexpected intimate touch coursed through him. He was not unfamiliar with the attentions of the female gender. But he was not prepared for the reaction the young hill girl had provoked.
"I was right," she said. Her blue-gray eyes were open wide, but glazed with visions that were inside her head. "I knew this morning when I saw you standing with the sun behind you that you were my prince come at last."
"What?"
Meggie Best let out her breath quickly as if she'd been holding it a long time. She picked up the carved wood spoon that he'd left carelessly in his plate. "See the spring buds and first flower," she said with quiet reverence. "It's a token of affection, Mr. Farley. And you accepted it from me." Her smile was dreamily serene. "And this, well, it's just piccalilli. But I'm hoping it'll be nostrum to make our love forever true."
She had moved up closer, her face only inches from his own. J. Monroe Farley choked. "Miss Best, I—"
"Oh, Mr. Farley, something really fine, some wonderful token, would be the taste of your sweet lips."
She leaned forward, her mouth very close.
He stared at those lush pink lips in disbelief.
"My dear Miss Best," he cautioned uneasily.
"It's all right, Mr. Farley, it's just the two of us here."
Again, he made a choking sound. It wasn't permission, but she took it as such. Parting her lips and turning her head with unpracticed expertise, her mouth was on his for only a second, one tiny, warm, thrilling second. It was as if a spark of lightning ran through them.
"Oh, Mr. Farley!" she exclaimed, her lips still close to his. "I knew when I saw you that you were the one."
"Uh." Roe made the startled sound. He hardly had time to make sense of her words before she threw her arms around his neck and plopped herself down in his lap.
The young Ozark woman squeezed him tightly to her ample chest and parted her lips. She was kissing him with such enthusiasm even a stone would have responded.
Monroe Farley was no stone. His life had not been one of beau around town, nor was he a slave to his passions. But he'd held women in his arms often enough to relish the pleasure. And the feel of the eager young arms that embraced him now was pleasure indeed.
With a sigh of satisfaction, he gave himself up to the kiss, tasting and exploring the sweet lips that were offered. He allowed his hands to clasp her waist, unbound by restrictive stays and soft beneath her thin covering of homespun cotton. He wanted her. Desire surged through him, hot and keen.
"Meggie," he managed to choke out as she pressed herself more tightly against him and sighed. Her firm round bosom was flattened against his chest and her hands fluttered up and down his back.
"Miss Best, I don't—" he tried again.
Her lips were everywhere, his mouth, his cheeks, the soft skin of his earlobe, and the ticklish length of his throat.
Desire, sizzling and ardent, overrode his better judgment and he kissed her back with passion. He allowed his own hands to roam the long length of her back and along the sides of her breasts. Pulling her even closer, he thrust his tongue into her mouth and was rewarded by her tiny cry of response. The sound enflamed him. One hand held her waist while the other was seeking the hem on the homespun skirt.
They broke apart momentarily to catch their breath. He felt her heart pounding against his chest.
"Oh, Mr. Farley, I knew, I knew," she whispered. "The minute I saw you, I knew. All the fellows on the mountain have been giving me the eye for years, but I knew someday you'd come for me and you have."
"What?" Roe's thoughts were befuddled.
"From the time I was a little girl, I read all the fairy tales, Mr. Farley. And I knew, there was a gentleman prince out there somewhere and that someday he would come to this mountain and love me and marry me and make me happy for all my life to come."
The words love and marry seeped into Roe's passion-addled brain and splashed a bucket of cold water upon his desire.
"What?" Immediately he removed her hands from his person. She grabbed his hands in her own and placed them once more around her waist.
"I waited and waited. At night I dreamed about you 'til I was near crazy with wanting. I thought I might grow old waiting. But you have come at last, Mr. Farley. Just like I always knew that you would. And now I will love you forever. Do you want me to let down my hair?"
"What?"
"Do you want me to let down my hair? Like Rapunzel," she added almost shyly. "Oh, Mr. Farley, this mountain is my tower and now you've come for me." She released her hold on him only for a moment to pull at the pins in her hair. They scattered about her as thick waves of dark honey-blond hair fell to her shoulders.
"Miss Best, I—"
"Oh, Mr. Farley, I do love you, already," she tol
d him, hugging him close once more. "And the fact that you like my cookin', well it couldn't be anything but fate."
"I don't know I—"
"Mr. Farley, I'm going to make you the finest wife that any man on this mountain ever had."
"Wife?" The word felt like a chicken bone stuck in his throat.
He came to his feet with such haste that he knocked over the chair they'd been sitting on and dropped the young woman in his arms to the floor.
Meggie Best stared up at him in dismay. "Dad-bum and blast! You dropped me right on my tailbone."
Roe was gazing at her in horror. He glanced toward the doorway and held his arm out as if to ward her off.
"Miss Best, I believe you have the wrong idea here."
"Wrong idea?" For a moment she seemed genuinely
puzzled. "Why, you were kissing me," she said. "How could I get the wrong idea?"
"It wasn't—well, I didn't mean. Well, you were kissing me!"
"We were kissing each other," she said.
"Yes, well, I didn't mean for that to happen," he said.
Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't?" Her voice was suddenly wary. "What are you about, Mr. J. Monroe Farley?"
"I'm not about anything, Miss Best. I was simply eating a bit of luncheon and you threw yourself upon me. I realize these mountains are isolated. But I assumed there would be sufficient males in the area that a woman would not need to accost strangers." He was overstating the case a bit, but he hoped this woman would understand his point.
She gazed up at him from the sweep-polished dirt floor. Her hair was wild about her face and her skirt was up around her knees, revealing two very naked female legs and a pair of bare feet.
"Accost strangers!"
"Miss Best, I—" he began, but couldn't quite think of what words to speak next. Slowly, he began to back up toward the door.
"Where are you going?"
"I think perhaps I should be getting along. It's nearly afternoon already and I do have . . ." he began. As she continued to stare at him warily he held out a hand. "Miss Best, I certainly never meant—"
"Never meant what?"
"Well, I never meant . . ." He looked down at her, disheveled and dangerous on the floor. "I never meant more than to carry on a simple dining-table conversation. That fellow, that prince that you are waiting for, well I'm sure we can both safely assume that I am not him."
With This Kiss: A First-In Series Romance Collection Page 239