Vass smiled, slightly embarrassed, then took a long drink from the blue quart jar that Lessy handed him.
“It’s good,” he said, as if the comment were a compliment to her cooking.
With a sigh, Lessy nodded her thanks.
The two looked at each other for long moments, each wishing for something important to say. They had always talked. The farm, the future, the day-to-day workings of life, had come easily to their tongues. But they had never talked about anything important. They had never talked about the feelings they held inside. Now, in his heart, Vass knew that any words were too little and too late. He had never deserved her. He would never be worthy of her, but he did still want her. Vass now wished he’d thrown caution to the wind.
But she’d turned to another man. The fact jolted him back into his sad reality, and he took another swig from the jar just to occupy himself.
“I’m not marrying Ripley,” Lessy announced calmly, although her hands were shaking.
Vassar’s heart stopped for an instant, and his eyes widened in surprise. Then they narrowed in anger. “Is that no-account trying to worm his way out?”
Lessy sighed and shook her head. “No, he still wants to wed.” She laughed lightly. “I don’t know what you said to the man, Vass, but you’ve sure put the fear of God in him. He seems almost desperate to marry me.” She took a deep breath before looking him straight in the eyes. “But I’m not having him, not now, not ever.”
His expression lightened slightly, but concern was still evident in his features. “I know how you must worry,” he said. “But I’m sure that he cares for you. How could he not? And he’s not so bad a fellow, and those rounder ways, well, for certain, Lessy, he’s the kind of man to give them up when he’s wed.”
“I’m not worried about his rounder ways,” Lessy said. “I just don’t love him.”
She was so matter-of-fact that Vass was momentarily taken aback.
“Of course you do,” he insisted.
“No, I don’t, Vass. I simply don’t. Why would you think so?”
“I saw you in the peach orchard, Lessy,” he said quietly. “I know you. And you’re not the kind of woman to ... well.”
Lessy’s cheeks were bright red with embarrassment, but she bravely bit her lip before she spoke. “That’s what you don’t understand about me, Vass. I am exactly that kind of woman. I am exactly the kind of woman to do all kinds of silly foolishness. I’m just a regular, ordinary woman with as many faults as any of my gender.”
“What do you mean?”
“I tried to tell you that day, Vass. I am not the sweet, hardworking young farm woman who thinks everything you think and wants everything that you want. That’s just what I’ve pretended to be.”
“You are perfect,” Vass told her.
“No, Vass. Truth is, I’m far from perfect. Before you came I was as averse to chores as any other farm girl. I could hardly wait for Sundays to see my friends, and I spent my free time with them laughing and gossiping and getting into foolishness. I don’t want to spend my peach money on waterfowl for the pond. I want the fanciest silk wedding dress this county has ever seen. And I want to be kissed and sparked and spooned along the edges before I’m safely wed. And if the man I love isn’t willing, I am certainly weak enough that another man will do.”
Vass saw the tears that had formed in her eyes, and he knew he should reach to comfort her, but he was frozen in place.
“I love you and I have since the first day you drove up in the yard. And I tried to be perfect for you, Vassar, because I believed that you were perfect. I assured myself that you could never want me as myself, so I made myself become someone else. Someone as perfect as I believed that you were. Daddy used to tell me that my life was like bread dough. I could shape it and form it into anything I ever wanted. And he was right about that, Vass. I just didn’t understand that I would still be bread even if I fashioned myself as a heart of gold. I can’t be perfect for you, Vassar.”
He lifted his hands, denying her words. “Lessy, I’m not perfect myself.”
“I know that, Vass,” she said. “You like to sleep late, and you’re a little single-minded at times, and you work too hard. I was so busy loving you that I blinded myself to your faults and your weaknesses as I wanted to blind you to my own. But I cannot blind myself to the fact that you don’t seem to want me, Vass. You don’t want me as a man wants a woman.”
He swallowed hard. Her confession was frightening in its erroneousness, its honesty, and its potential. Maybe it was not over. Could there still be a chance for him to have the woman that he loved?
“I have more faults, Lessy, than those you’ve mentioned,” he said evenly. “I have a . .. well... a weakness for women that I’ve tried not to show you.”
Lessy looked up into his eyes, still trusting. “Mammy told me about your ‘woman trouble’ in Arkadelphia,” she said. “It’s truly none of my business, but I wished that I’d known it sooner. Then maybe I would have realized that it wasn’t my own, very human nature that kept you at a distance, but your own lack of desire for me.”
Vassar’s face was rigid.
“You wanted a good little farm wife that would do everything right but wouldn’t press on your heart, wouldn’t demand your love in return. Do you still carry a torch for that married woman in your past?”
He shook his head. “No! Lessy, of course I don’t.”
Lessy nodded only slightly. “Well, I am glad about that, I suppose.” She swallowed bravely. “I’ve already said that I love you, and I can tell you now that I always will. I just wish that you had a weakness for me the way you had a weakness for her. That’s what I came out here to tell you after all.” Her chin was raised with challenge, and her stance was willful with her arms folded stubbornly across her chest.
“I may never wed. I may live my whole life as an unloved, dried-up old maid. But I’d rather do that than have a man that I’d have to pretend with. Or a man that would have to pretend to wanting me.”
Eyes narrowing in anger, Lessy jerked the mason jar out of his hand. Fury stiffened her spine as she turned to go. Vass stared after her with stunned disbelief. Who was this wild fiery woman who was living in sweet little Lessy’s body? Who was spitting fire at him from soft-spoken little Lessy’s mouth? Who was stomping angrily away across the hayfield, the soft floating walk of Lessy now an alluring sultry sway of hips that enticed him with every step?
“Lessy!”
His call stopped her dead still, but she didn’t turn around. Vassar began to run. Standing stiffly in the field, she didn’t once look back as he called her name over and over as he raced toward her. Reaching her side, he grabbed her arm and pulled her toward him. His heart pounded in his chest as he drew her to face him.
“Lessy.” He spoke only a little above a whisper.
“Vassar,” she answered, her voice as quiet as his own.
A thousand thoughts jumbled in his mind. A thousand excuses and a thousand explanations jockeyed for first confession from his tongue. But the words that came out were from the heart, not the head.
“I love you, Lessy. I love you. I haven’t given more than a thought to Mabel Brightmore since the day I came to this farm. I want you, Lessy. How can you ever doubt it? I can’t get up in the morning because I spend all night long dreaming that I hold you in my arms.” His eyes burned with a feverish glow. “Make that dream come true for me, Lessy,” he whispered. ‘Take me, boring, slugabed, and all, and I will spend the rest of my life learning to love you for who you really are.”
He leaned forward and wrapped his arms about her waist. “I love you, Lessy,” he said. “I love you whoever you are.”
Pulling her close, Vass lowered his mouth to hers. It was a kiss of fire, a kiss of desperation, a kiss of passion. Lessy’s own arms circled his neck and pulled him even closer as she answered the question in his touch. His lips were greedy, eager, starving at her mouth, and he could not pull her near enough to ease the ache that gna
wed at him.
Lessy, too, felt her flesh jittering like lightning in the clouds of a summer storm. She couldn’t keep her hands still as they wandered the wide breadth of his shoulders and caressed the soft blond hair at the nape of his neck.
One of Vassar’s big sun-browned hands slipped low on her back and pressed her more tightly against him. He rubbed himself against her in a rough and lusty manner, and her own eager response and moan of shocked delight urged him on.
Vass broke the kiss from her mouth to trail his lips along her throat. Greedily his tongue flickered against the tiny marks on the underside of her jaw that had long lured him. He pressed her bosom tightly to his chest, feeling her soft tempting roundness and the hard, eager nipples. Struggling valiantly he managed to get exploring fingers between his heated flesh and her own.
Lessy threw her head back in delight and bit down painfully on her lip, trying to control the waves of pleasure that were coursing through her.
Vassar’s other hand slid down her backside, clutching her bottom and squeezing her gently before venturing down the back of her thigh.
Pressing his face against her bosom, he heard and felt the rapid pounding of her heart. She wanted him as he wanted her. And he was loath to wait another minute.
He dropped to his knees in front of her and lay his cheek gently against the soft curve of her belly. Here she would receive his love, and here she would carry his children. He pressed his lips to the warm soft cotton of her skirt for one long struggling moment of thrilling enticement before he raised his eyes to hers.
He fought for breath and the right words to say as he took her hands in his own. Bringing her knuckles to his lips, he kissed them ardently, submissively, like a slave to a queen.
“Do you believe now that I want you, Lessy? Can you doubt it?”
He ran his hands eagerly along her thighs, and her eyes widened in shock and wicked delight.
“Marry me, Lessy,” he pleaded. “Marry me and allow me to learn everything there is to know about the woman that I love. Marry me and find out the truth about the man who has dreamed of being your husband since the day that we met.”
Lessy dropped to her knees beside him in the grass and whispered yes as again they embraced. Unashamedly they kissed and caressed each other in the blind passion of new love. Lessy trembled at his touch, and Vass struggled with control as the flame of their love set the kindling of desire to blaze.
Vass would have laid with her, there in the fresh-mown hay of the summer afternoon, and she would have let him. There was no shame or sin in what they felt. Vows unspoken had already been said with the heart.
But the hoots and hollers of a rowdy haying crew penetrated their blissful heaven, causing them to jerk away from each other in disbelief and embarrassment.
“The men!” Lessy squealed shamefaced as she hastily pulled together her bodice that inexplicably had come undone.
Vass hurriedly moved in front of her to shield her from the eyes of the yammering yahoos waving and shouting from near the hay wagon.
“I forgot that they were there,” Lessy admitted and then foolishly began to giggle.
Vass caught her mood and chuckled, also, before shaking his head with self-derision. “I swear, Lessy. I forgot that there was anyone else in the whole world.”
Epilogue
The train shuddered to a stop at the new clapboard station. The porter put down a block of steps, and two young children scampered down from the train followed by Lessy and Vassar Muldrow.
“Lena June!” Lessy called out to the little girl. “Mind your brother while your daddy and I get the bags.”
The porter handed down two well-worn grip sacks and received both a tip and a thank you from Vass.
Lessy looked around the clean, modem new station in a town that hadn’t even existed when the two had taken their first trip, their honeymoon trip, nearly eight years ago.
Theirs had been the fanciest wedding that the county had ever seen. Vassar had worn a brand-new suit that was swell enough to get buried in. His dad and brothers had made the trip from Arkadelphia to stand up with him. And both his mother and Mammy Green had worn new store-bought dresses from Kansas City.
Lessy’s fine white gown had been silk and lace, which she had fancifully embroidered with tiny ducks and geese around the bodice and hem.
They had delayed the wedding several weeks to come up with all the finery, including satin ribbons on the church pews and dripless candles of pure white from the Montgomery Ward catalog.
“We are only going to marry once,” Vass had said. “We want the public symbol of it to be as special as our private happiness.”
Poor Reverend Watson had become a little anxious for the day to arrive. The young couple had become so calf-eyed and openly affectionate, they had become a near scandal and a clear embarrassment to the community. Lessy giggled even now at the memory of the hang-dog expression that had been on Vass’s face those last few nights when they’d had to part at bedtime.
Finally, when they’d stepped out of the church, laughing and delighted to be Mr. and Mrs. Vassar Muldrow, he’d lifted Lessy clear off the ground and twirled her around like a whirligig until they were both laughing and dizzy and the congregation thought them half crazy. With almost discourteous haste, they’d made their getaway in the brightly festooned buggy as if they could hardly wait for the privacy of their honeymoon Pullman car to Kansas City.
“What are you thinking about, Lessy?” Vassar asked as he managed to grasp both bags in one hand and chivalrously took her arm. “You’ve got a faraway look on that face I know so well.”
She grinned suggestively. “It’s so nice to be able to ride the train all the way home,” she said. “My least favorite part of our yearly vacations was always that long buggy ride home from DeQueen.”
“That buggy ride was downright romantic until we had two wild Indians that we have to practically tie to the buggy.”
Lessy smiled wryly and nodded agreement.
‘Tommy, Lena June, don’t go running off,” he called sternly after the children, who seemed much in danger of doing exactly that.
As the couple made their way off the platform, to the newly bricked street that was the pride of the brand-new town, the children followed in their fashion. With a blast of whistle and a smoky puff of steam, the train headed on down the track to Texarkana.
“Look, Daddy!” the little boy squealed, pointing a chubby finger at a new, brightly colored billboard next to the station.
The two adults surveyed the signboard as Lessy read it aloud. “ ‘Welcome to Peach Grove, Arkansas. Population 1,895. Home of Ripley-Muldrow Agricultural Works. Arkansas Machines for American Farmers.’ ”
“That’s our name!” young Tom exclaimed with a delighted giggle.
Vass gave a wry grin and a long-suffering sigh. ‘That Rip can never seem to remember the ‘silent’ in ‘silent partner.’ ”
Lessy waved away his objection. “It’s a good name. You are the one who helped him get started.”
Vass shook his head. “We’ve received plenty of compensation for that over the years. It was only a little investment that paid off. It was Rip’s business, his designs, and his hard work that made the company and gave this little community a bit of commerce and enterprise aside from farming.”
Lessy couldn’t argue that.
“He should have called it Ripley and Sons,” Vass said firmly.
Lessy giggled at his affronted puffiness. ‘That would have been a good name for it, considering all the sons that he has. It seems like poor Sugie Jo is in the family way nearly all the time.”
Vass grinned. “And such big boys they are, too.” His eyes were wide with feigned innocence. “Why, that oldest of theirs, nearly nine and a half pounds the day he was born! And a full three months early at that.”
“Vassar!” Lessy hissed through her teeth. “The children.”
Her discomfiture only brought a deep chuckle and a broader smile to his face. �
��Now, Lessy honey, don’t be acting all proper and saintly on me now. If there is one thing I’ve learned about the woman that I’ve married, it’s that she is plainly just as fraught with human frailties as I am.”
As the children moved on up ahead of them, Vassar began to hum a familiar tune, and taking up the challenge, Lessy joined in, quietly singing the bawdy words that her husband had taught her and that she now knew by heart.
“She was curved and plump
And broad of rump
And her drawers were pink and frilly.
As years may pass, I’ll oft recall
That day spent plowing Millie.”
Also by Pamela Morsi
Territory Trysts
Wild Oats
Runabout
Tales from Marrying Stone
Marrying Stone
Simple Jess
The Lovesick Cure
A Marrying Stone Christmas (coming soon)
Small-Town Swains
Something Shady
No Ordinary Princess
Sealed With a Kiss
Garters
The Love Charm
Women’s Fiction
Doing Good/Social Climber of Davenport Heights
Letting Go
Suburban Renewal
By Summer’s End
The Cotton Queen
Bitsy’s Bait & BBQ
Last Dance at Jitterbug Lounge
Red’s Hot Honky-Tonk Bar
Contemporary Romance
The Bikini Car Wash
The Bentley’s Buy at Buick
Love Overdue
Mr. Right Goes Wrong
Single Title Historicals
Heaven Sent
Courting Miss Hattie
Sweetwood Bride
Here Comes the Bride
Novellas
With Marriage In Mind in the collection Matters of the Heart
Making Hay Page 8