by Jo Goodman
“Mnh.”
“And finally, that kiss lasted for a good long time. I was not counting, but I have an uncanny sense for it, and I would put the duration of that kiss somewhere between the time is takes Cutter to get thrown from the new mare once he’s seated in the saddle and the first eight measures of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring” played at a moderate tempo.”
Willa stared at him, blank and unblinking. She suspected her eyes were as round and as large as silver dollars, but under threat of death, she would not have been able to close them.
Israel asked, “You’re familiar, aren’t you? No?” He hummed Bach’s masterwork, pitching it low and perfect, but only the first eight measures so that it ended abruptly. “I have always liked that piece.” He held up his hands, wiggled ten fingers. “Piano. Twelve years. You didn’t guess that, did you?”
Willa shook her head, but the movement was barely perceptible.
Israel dropped his hands to his sides again and curled his fingers lightly around the edge of the bench. His features settled solemnly into place. “I’d like to hear your version of that kiss,” he said. “I’d like to know what you mean when you talk about the way you behaved.”
Frozen in a manner that had nothing to do with the cold, Willa was silent.
“I’ve been wondering,” said Israel, “if there is something you think you did wrong. Or perhaps you’re thinking you should not have participated. You did, though, and rather sweetly.”
Willa jerked slightly. The blankets shivered around her.
“Ah.” This time it was Israel whose shake of the head was almost imperceptible. “Would you have preferred that I not kiss you at all?”
Willa found her voice, or rather she found a voice, one that had a distinctive rasp to it and was unlike anything she had heard coming from her throat before. “Yes,” she said. Then, “No.” And finally, “I don’t know.”
“It’s that confusing, is it?”
“Yes.” This time the voice was one she recognized. “I’m sorry, but yes.”
“That’s all well and good, except there is no reason that I can think of for you to apologize.”
She shrugged. The blanket around her shoulders slipped and she drew it back, but it slipped again. Before she could tell Israel she did not require his help, he was off the bench and resettling the blanket around her so that it covered the front of her like an armor breastplate and opened at the back. When she leaned against the wall, he tucked it in. She was several degrees warmer almost immediately, or at least it felt that way. Then again, it might have had something to do with Israel’s hovering presence. He stayed where he was, looking her over, and she was reminded that this was exactly how he stood close to her in the kitchen moments before he kissed her.
There was no kiss this time. He backed away without looking and John Henry had to scramble to avoid being stepped on.
“Hey, boy,” Israel said, bending to scratch the back of the dog’s head. “Aren’t you the clever one to be looking at where I’m going?” He straightened and returned to the bench, where he and John Henry both resumed their positions.
“Aren’t you cold?” asked Willa once he was comfortably and casually stretched out.
“I can tolerate it. Anyway, sometimes being cold is what’s called for.” When Willa frowned, he said, “It’s all right. You don’t have to understand.” He thrust his hands into the lined pockets of his heavy coat. “Have you changed your mind about your proposal?” he asked. “Maybe you regret making the offer.”
She supposed she should have expected the question, but oddly enough, she hadn’t.
“I’m asking,” Israel said, “because you haven’t said another word about it. I was following your lead, but I don’t figure that excuses me from bringing it up, so that’s what’s on my mind. For now.”
It was the “for now,” or rather the intentional way he said it, that caused Willa’s heartbeat to falter first then knock hard against her chest. She was not accustomed to feeling ridiculous, but when her mind kept wandering back to the kitchen, back to that kiss, it was exactly how she felt.
“I haven’t changed my mind,” Willa said.
“Mm. Regrets?”
“No. You?”
“It’s not quite the same for me, is it? I didn’t give you an answer that night, and I haven’t made up my mind about it yet so I can’t really change it. I don’t have regrets, though. Not about you putting the question to me and certainly not about the kiss.”
“I thought we were done talking about that.”
“The kiss? No. Why would you think that? Is that something you regret?”
“You’re just coming at that question a different way. I don’t know how I feel about it. I don’t know how I am supposed to feel about it.”
“Supposed to? Are you under the impression there is a right answer here?”
Willa breathed in deeply through her nose. A moment later her lips parted with her slow exhale. “I’ve been kissed before,” she said.
“Of course.”
She looked at him sharply. “Why ‘of course’?”
“Because you said ‘yes’ to Eli. In the three years you kept your engagement a secret, I supposed you and he eventually followed up on that blood oath.”
“Oh. Well, I didn’t like it.”
“Perhaps if you and he had been older.”
“I didn’t like it,” she repeated.
“All right.”
“So I didn’t expect I might come to a different opinion.”
One of his dark brows kicked up. “And . . .”
“I did. Come to a different opinion, that is. I liked it.”
Israel removed one hand from his pocket and held up an index finger. “Just to be clear,” he said. “How long ago did you begin entertaining this new view?”
Willa did not try to hide that the question puzzled her. Her brows folded together. “It’s been two weeks,” she said flatly, wondering why he didn’t know that.
“Ah. So we are talking about the kiss in your kitchen.”
“I am. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
But then she did. Before he could explain himself, it came to her that he was wondering about the man who was responsible for her new perspective. He hadn’t known he was that man. Perhaps he had been hopeful, optimistic as he said earlier, but he wasn’t sure, and now she was not sure she should have told him.
“Never mind,” she said, giving him a narrow-eyed look. “I understand why you were asking, and I certainly hope you do not mean to crow or strut or beat your chest. I liked the kiss just fine, but maybe for all the practice you’ve had, I should’ve liked it better.”
Chapter Ten
Israel gave a shout of laughter that surprised even him. Willa’s head snapped back against the stall wall with a resonating thump, some of the horses snuffled, others nickered, Galahad snorted loudly, and John Henry raised his head and gave Israel an unhappy look before he settled his nose on his paws again and closed his eyes.
“You know, Willa, if any other woman told me that for all my practice maybe she should have liked the kissing better, I would take it as a challenge. But it’s you, so I expect you meant nothing more by it than to put me in my place, maybe keep my head from swelling so big that my hat won’t fit.”
“It’s your pride I was swiping at,” she said a shade defensively. “That other thing you said about putting you in your place, that wasn’t my intention.”
“Wasn’t it?” he asked. “You do it frequently.”
Instead of denying it outright, she said, “I do?”
He shrugged. “All part and parcel of you being the boss lady, I expect. You probably can’t help it.”
She sat up straight. “Do the others think like that? That I put them in their place? Does Cutter? Lord, does Zach?”
/> “I can’t recall that you’ve ever done it to them. Certainly not to Zach. Maybe Cutter when he first came, but I can’t speak to that. You didn’t ask about Happy, though.”
Willa’s silence was telling.
“I suppose he struggles the same as I do,” Israel said. “I realize Happy’s lost his way in a bottle, and me? I’ve just lost my way. That’s why any place you put me right now mostly feels tolerable, but you should know that it won’t always, and that time will come sooner if we’re married. Happy says you will never give me a part in running this ranch. Is he right?”
“Yes.”
“Huh. I didn’t believe him.”
“I’m not going to give you anything. You have to earn it. Happy’s different. He has to earn it back.”
“That’s fair.”
“Happy doesn’t always think so.”
“No, I don’t suppose he does.”
“Did he tell you he almost lost the valley to Malcolm Barber shortly after my mother died?” When Israel shook his head, Willa went on. “He started drinking—hard drinking—when she first took ill with the cancer. That was four months before she died, and he slipped away from us before she did. She said she understood, and perhaps she did, but I didn’t. We needed him. She needed him. After Mama was gone, so was he. He spent weeks at a time in Jupiter. I don’t know if he was whoring, but he was drinking and gambling, and that attracted Malcolm’s attention. Mal got my father into a high-stakes poker game, probably with no coercion whatsoever, and proceeded to strip him of his cash on hand, his money in the bank, his horse, his saddle, and when there was nothing else left, Mal put the promise that I would marry Eli on the table.”
“The promise that you would . . .” Israel’s voice faded away. He shook his head to clear it. “You’re not married to Eli, so what changed?”
“In spite of Happy’s condition, he still had enough sense not to agree to that wager. He straight up offered the deed to the ranch instead.”
“Jesus,” Israel said under his breath.
“Yes. He had it in his mind that he was saving me, naturally with no thought to the fact that he was risking everything I loved.”
Israel could only imagine one outcome, but he had to ask. “What happened?”
“He won. Full house, three queens, two sixes. Mal had a spade flush. A good hand, but not good enough this time. Folks watching the card play told me later that there was a suspicion that Mal cheated to get his flush, but no one dared call him out, and it wasn’t their place anyway. They were bystanders to that little drama, and only Mal and Happy were still in the game. Zach arrived late, too late to intervene, and I swear to you that having to stand there helplessly while the hand played out just about killed him. He brought Happy back and told me what happened. I thought he was going to quit, and I hardly could have blamed him if he had. I wanted to take a whip to Happy, but he was so pathetic, crying and slobbering all over himself, begging to be forgiven, promising to never take another drink, that I fired a shot at his feet instead and walked away.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“He stopped crying,” she said.
“It’s a wonder he didn’t stop breathing.”
“That would have been my second shot.”
She said this last with considerable dryness, but Israel was not entirely convinced that she didn’t mean it. He didn’t ask her, though. There should be mystery, he decided.
“I think I understand what Happy needs to do,” he said. “I’m still wondering what you expect from me.” He stopped her before she charged ahead with a list. “Not as one of your hands, Willa. As your husband.”
Her lips parted and then closed.
“You understand there is a difference, don’t you? As the first, I work for you. As the second, I work with you.”
She slowly nodded. “Yes, but you still have to learn all the same things. Riding, busting, mustering, herding, branding, shooting, digging, shoveling, mending, planting, weeding, accounting, canning, and cussing.” She sucked in a breath. “I’ll give you the last. You have a fair grasp there.”
“I’m decent with a shovel, too.”
She laughed on a breath. “Sure, there’s plenty you can do, and plenty more you can learn if you have a mind to. Frankly, I’ve been wondering. I meant what I said. I won’t give you anything.”
“And I meant what I said,” he told her. “That’s fair.”
“It’ll be no different in the bedroom.”
That made his eyebrows climb his forehead. “At the risk of you taking another swipe at me, I am relatively confident there are things I can do in the bedroom. I won’t list them. It would embarrass even me.” If he had not been watching her closely, he might have missed the wash of color that suffused her skin. Her cheeks glowed gold and rose in the lantern light.
Smiling to himself, satisfied with this result, he said, “Zach is teaching me how to throw a lasso.”
“He is?”
“And I’ve seen a lot of the property at one time or another, riding out with Cutter or Happy.”
“When have you done that?”
“At night. Had to do it then, otherwise you would have known, and we were all busy during the day so there really wasn’t time. And I guess I should tell you about some things I can do. For instance, we had a garden back in Herring. A big one because my parents were in favor of eating and sharing the fruits of my labor. Quill’s, too. He wasn’t exempt from the planting and weeding and canning. Preserving as well. You didn’t mention that. You also didn’t mention butchering and smoking meat. My father liked to hunt, and he took Quill and me when he thought we were old enough. I know how to dress a deer, prepare venison and jerky, so I guess I would be a help in the smokehouse no matter what meat you’re preparing. Hunting is also how I know I’m not much good with a gun. Now my brother, he was a savant. By all accounts, he still is. And about accounts? I can keep them. I know about credits and balances and receivables. I had to learn it for the church and the missions. I am not without skills you need here. True, I can’t rope worth a damn yet and I’ve never mustered or branded or herded, but Zach will bring me along. He swears he’s going to make a cowman out of me.”
“I had no idea,” she said somewhat distantly.
“I know.”
“And you play the piano.”
Israel ginned, dimple flashing. “Not much call for that here. Not any call really.”
“There’s a piano.” Willa’s wistful smile transformed her face when it reached her eyes. “It was my mother’s. She played. Beautifully, I think. She taught Annalea some tunes, but I never had an interest, nor do I believe I had any talent for it.”
“A piano? Where is it?”
“In the front room. I don’t suppose you’ve been in there.”
“Never past the kitchen.”
“Perhaps that’s something that can change. Annalea hasn’t touched the keys since Mama died. No one has. If she heard you play . . .” Willa shrugged. “Maybe . . . maybe it would be good to have music in the house again.”
Israel drew up his legs and leaned forward, setting his forearms on his knees. He loosely clasped his hands together as he regarded Willa openly and with no apology for making her squirm.
“I want to kiss you, Willa. Does that surprise you?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head.
“Does it alarm you?”
“A little.” She lifted her chin and added quickly, “But not because I’m scared.”
“No. Of course not. Does anything scare you?”
“There are . . . things.”
“Spiders?”
“Now you’re mocking me.”
“I’m not.”
“Hmm. Are you going to kiss me?”
“I’m working up to it. You scare me.”
“I do not.”
“Yes, you do. Come here.” He sat up and made a pocket for her between his knees. He held out his hands, palms up, fingers curled slightly toward him. The invitation was clear, and he was in no expectation that she would take him up on it, but in spite of that he waited, and then waited longer, and finally, when he was at the point of withdrawing, he said her name softly. “Wilhelmina.”
She shrugged off the blanket that lay across her shoulders and breasts, the one that he had tucked around her to protect her from the cold, and quite possibly from him as well. When she stood, the blanket across her lap fell to the barn floor. She stepped over it, hesitated, and then took a breath and the last three steps to close the distance between them. She laid her palms against his. His fingers slipped under the sleeves of her robe and her shift and circled her wrists. Just as before, he exerted very little pressure to bring her closer.
Israel eased her onto one of his knees. She wobbled a bit there and pulled her wrists away so she could grasp his shoulders. He slipped an arm under her calves and lifted, bringing his knees together so she was securely in his lap. He placed one hand on her hip, the other at her back. A shiver went through him.
“You are cold,” she said. “Let me get a blanket.”
He shook his head. “I’m the opposite of cold.” He watched her think about that, watched the traces of perplexity fade as she worked it out. Her brow smoothed, one corner of her mouth lifted, and her black coffee eyes filled with the light of comprehension.
“Oh,” she said.
He laughed low in the back of his throat. “Yes. Oh. Are you all right?”
She nodded.
“Good. I was thinking that maybe this time you could kiss me, and we’d see how that goes.”
“But this was your idea.”