The Hired Man

by Lynna Banning

  “Might be best not to ask, Eleanor. Knowing how she died won’t make it any easier.”

  She lifted her head and swiped tears off her cheeks. “D-don’t let Molly or Danny see it.”

  “I won’t. You want to wait on the porch while I—?”

  “No. I want to know. I can’t plant zinnias and delphiniums on somebody’s grave.”

  He released her and picked up his spade.

  She waited off to one side, afraid to look, afraid not to look, while he ran the blade into the earth up and down the area he’d marked off. After a quarter of an hour, he stopped and walked toward her.

  “There are no more graves, just that one.”

  More tears came stinging into her eyes and she covered her face with her hands. Again Cord moved to her side and folded his arms around her. But this time when she stopped crying he didn’t let her go.

  Chapter Thirteen

  He rested his lips against her forehead, and the next thing she knew he bent his head and his mouth found hers. At that moment everything seemed to stop. She grew intensely aware of the twittering of sparrows in the maple trees, the breeze sighing through the branches, even Molly and Daniel’s laughter from somewhere behind the porch.

  How far away things seemed. And how beautiful.

  His lips moved slowly over hers, telling her something, asking something. It was like being a little tipsy, as if a warm velvet cloak were enveloping her. A sweet, insistent ache started below her belly and spread through her entire body. This was heaven. This was fire. And she never wanted it to end.

  When he lifted his mouth from hers she was weeping. “Oh,” she breathed. She kept her eyes closed to prolong the delicious, languid feeling inside her. “Oh, my. What a lot I have missed in life.”

  Cord said nothing for so long she wondered if she had dreamed these last few moments. He still held her, and finally he cleared his throat. “That wasn’t because of our bet.”

  “Oh? What was it, then?”

  “Damned if I know. Maybe because we uncovered a gravestone and that reminded us of something.”

  “Reminded us of what?”

  He hesitated. “That life is short. That life can be hell or it can be sweet. That we’re all gonna die someday. It’d be nice if everybody could have a moment like...” He cleared his throat again. “Like what we just had.”

  All she could do was look into his eyes and nod.

  “How about we make your flower bed a bit shorter?” he said after a moment. “I’m sure Amanda won’t mind.”

  Fresh tears flooded into her eyes. “Maybe she would like some flowers on her grave.”

  They finished preparing her flower bed at dusk, and during all that time Eleanor hadn’t said a single word. She just worked steadily alongside him, turning over the earth and pounding out the clods with her shovel.

  When they had done all they could in one afternoon, he washed up at the pump in the yard and she disappeared upstairs for a long time. When she came back down to cook supper, she looked fresh and clean in a green print skirt and white shirtwaist, though her face looked like paste and her voice shook when she spoke. She had exhausted herself.

  He thought about offering to cook supper, but he figured that would just get her dander up. She might be tired, but Eleanor never let you forget she had a mind of her own.

  * * *

  “Ma, how come your eyes are all red?”

  “Eat your potatoes, Daniel.”

  “But Ma—”

  “Your mother and I spaded up her new garden plot today,” Cord said smoothly. “I think something made her sneeze.”

  “Yeah?” he said, his voice full of disbelief. “Like what?”

  “Dust,” Eleanor said quickly.

  “Dust never bothered you before,” Danny pursued.

  Cord reached for his coffee cup. “Things have a way of creeping up on a person, Dan. Sometimes you don’t notice something until it’s too late.”

  “And then you get all sneezy,” Molly interjected. “The barn makes me sneezy.”

  Eleanor looked everywhere but at him—the coffeepot, the back door, even the whiskey bottle on the top shelf of the china cabinet. He’d give a silver dollar to know what was going on in her head.

  The silence grew thicker, and her one-word comments got sharper right up until she served the chocolate cake she’d baked that morning. He noticed her hand shaking when she cut the slices. Jehoshaphat, she was worrying her children and driving him crazy. He didn’t want to just kiss her; he wanted to shake her. He’d never mistreated a woman in his life, not even...

  You don’t want to think about that, Winterman.

  The kids gobbled down their dessert and pelted out the back door. Eleanor started to clear the dishes, and then abruptly she slammed one plate down on the table.

  That did it. He was on his feet in a heartbeat and, reaching for her, he closed his hands around her upper arms. “You know something, Eleanor? Not only do you have a stubborn, I-can-do-it-myself streak, but at times you can be downright maddening.”

  “I’m maddening! You’re the one who’s maddening, Cord.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, really.”

  “Well, maybe we just don’t like each other!” Hell’s bells, he knew that wasn’t true, but she could sure get under his skin.

  “Maybe we don’t,” she retorted. Then she burst into tears.

  Cord sat her down, poured two fingers of whiskey in her coffee and pushed the cup across the table toward her. For the next half hour she sipped and coughed and cried, while he washed and dried the supper dishes and stacked them in the china cabinet. Finally he hung the damp dish towel on the hook by the stove and sat down across from her.

  “Feeling better?”

  She gave him a hesitant nod.

  “Well, I don’t feel better,” he said shortly. “Maybe you don’t like me, Eleanor, but you do like your children. You’re not the only farmwife with two rambunctious kids and too much work to do. When you get overtired you scare Molly and Danny.”

  And me.

  She shook her head, but she wouldn’t look at him, just stared down into her coffee cup.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you,” he went on, “but I don’t think it’s because you’re bothered by your gentlemen callers or by digging up a gravestone in your garden. I think it’s something else.”

  She said nothing, so he splashed some whiskey in his own cup and downed it in one gulp.

  After another long, agonizing minute she looked up at him. “It isn’t that I don’t like you, Cord. It’s just that sometimes you and the children get under my skin and I...well, I say things I don’t mean.”

  “You get under my skin, too, Eleanor. But I’m saying exactly what I mean. I think you’re working too hard and that’s keeping you from getting your strength back. And I think that makes you mad because it scares you half to death.” He waited three long, tense breaths. “Am I right?”

  She drained her whiskey-laced coffee and stood up on unsteady legs. “You are exactly right, Cord. And I’ll thank you not to remind me of it ever again!”

  He rose and stuck out his hand. “Deal.”

  She shook his hand like an old ranch hand would, a swift, hard grip and a fast getaway. Made him smile. In fact, touching her made him warm all over.

  * * *

  Eleanor tucked Molly and Daniel into their beds, heard their prayers and read them a chapter of Uncle Fox’s Railroad. Then she tiptoed down the hall to her own bedroom with an unsettled feeling in her bones. If there was one thing she really hated about Cord Winterman it was his uncanny ability to put his thumb on the truth and grind it in until it hurt.

  She pulled her white lawn nightgown over her head and blew out the lantern. She wasn’
t the least bit sleepy, so she lay awake, puzzling over why Cord nettled her so much. He didn’t waste time or treat her unfairly or speak sharply. Well, not too sharply. He was helpful with the chores. He did whatever she asked of him and more. And both Molly and Daniel liked him.

  So why didn’t she like him?

  With a cry she sat bolt upright in bed. She did like him.

  And that was the problem. Liking Cord Winterman was the last thing, the very last thing, she wanted to do.

  Cord made her nervous. He made her angry. He made her aware of how lonely she’d been all these years. He made her...hungry. The memory of his mouth on hers, hot and inviting, haunted her every waking moment.

  Well, she would simply not think about it anymore. Not ever.

  She flopped back onto her pillow and stared up into the dark until her eyes burned. Don’t think about it. That kiss. Him.

  Oh, dear God in heaven, what was she going to do about the rest of her life?

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Would anyone like another flapjack?” Eleanor asked.

  Danny’s fork clanked onto his empty plate. “I do, Ma.”

  “Eat it quickly, Danny. You’ll be late for school.”

  The boy slathered syrup over his plate. “Whatcha gonna do while I’m at school today, Cord?”

  “I’m giving your mother a shooting lesson right after breakfast.”

  Eleanor dropped the pancake spatula onto the griddle.

  “Golly, Cord,” Danny blurted out. “I sure wish I could watch!”

  “No one is going to watch,” Eleanor said firmly.

  Molly’s lower lip pushed out. “Not even me?”

  “Not even you,” Cord said. “It’ll be real noisy, and your mama’s probably gonna get upset and say a lot of words she won’t want you to hear.”

  “I will not!” Eleanor rapped his knuckles with the spatula, but he could see she was smiling. Sort of.

  “And after that,” Cord added, “I’m going to help her plant some flower seeds.”

  Molly heaved a theatrical sigh. “What am I gonna do?”

  “You mean after you dress Roscoe up in your dolly’s pink dress?”

  “Roscoe is a boy!” she announced.

  Cord lifted one eyebrow. “Well, now. How did you figure that out?”

  “Mama told me.”

  He shot a look at Eleanor, but she was intent on buttering the pancake on her plate and wouldn’t look up. Just as well, he figured. Talking about sex with her, even cat sex, would be just plain foolhardy.

  After breakfast he took her revolver and his Colt and walked Eleanor out behind the apple orchard, where he set an empty tomato can on a stump.

  “I can’t hit that,” she protested. “It’s too far away.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” He positioned the revolver in her two hands and instructed her to raise the barrel slowly. “Now, fix your sight on the target.”

  “I can’t hold it steady, Cord.”

  “You waited too long and your arm got tired. Lower the gun, wait a moment and raise it again.”

  Her first shot made her jump. “Oh, it happened so fast! Now I’m scared the gun will go off on its own!”

  “It won’t. Just take it real slow, like I showed you.” He moved behind her and lifted both her hands in his. “Don’t rush. Now, breathe in and then let your breath out partway.”

  Her back brushed his shirt buttons and he felt her relax against him. Her hair smelled of roses. This time he was the one who jerked at the shot. He guessed he was startled because he wasn’t paying close enough attention.

  She tried another shot and again the bullet whined past the tin can. She groaned. “I missed again. What am I doing wrong?”

  “You’re rushing it. Try to slow your breathing down.”

  After numerous corrections to her stance and the speed at which she raised the revolver, she managed to clip the tin can with a bullet and surprised him with a triumphant yelp. He reloaded for her and stepped away.

  She fired, snap-snap-snap, and the can just sat there.

  “You always do things in such a hurry?” he asked.

  “Yes, I suppose I do.”

  “Well, don’t.”

  Again he positioned himself at her back and talked her through slowly sighting down the barrel and slowly squeezing the trigger. He bent forward to guide her hands, and her hair, caught in a bun at her neck, tickled his chin. He sucked in a rose-scented breath and closed his eyes.

  Winterman, you’d better get this woman out of your arms or you’ll end up kissing her all to hell and back.

  When she finally sent the tin can spinning off the stump, she gave an unladylike squeal and he had to laugh. It was plain as sunshine on Sundays that Eleanor Malloy liked to succeed. And he was learning that success made her reckless.

  She waved the revolver around until he caught her arm and knocked it out of her hand. “Eleanor, no matter how good you’re feeling, waving a weapon around isn’t safe.”

  She listened intently, nodded and then did the very same thing after her next shot.

  Cord shook his head in frustration and explained it all over again. Then for the next hour he did more laughing than lecturing, and finally—finally—she got the message. Her aim improved and at last he began to relax.

  “Are you a good shot?” she inquired as he reset the tin can on the stump.

  “Fair,” he said.

  “Show me.”

  A big dose of male pride made him rattle off five shots that had the tomato can dancing over the ground. She studied the target, then pinned him with penetrating gray eyes.

  “Why are you such a good shot? Were you once a lawman?”

  He laughed it off, but her question sobered him like a bath in a cold creek. Once he’d been on the wrong side of the law, and after he served his time in prison in Missouri, he’d just drifted aimlessly, cowboyed some in Idaho, drove a herd of cattle to Abilene, joined a posse or two. Just drifted. He sure as hell wasn’t going to tell Eleanor any of that, especially the part about prison.

  They walked back to the house through the blossoming apple orchard. Cord inhaled deeply of the sweet-scented trees, and was just thinking that the morning had gone well when she shattered his calm.

  “Cord,” she said suddenly. “Who taught you to do laundry?”

  He stopped short. “My wife.”

  She spun to face him, her eyes wide. “Your wife? You are still married? I thought she divorced you.”

  “She did.”

  “What happened to her?”

  Cord clenched his jaw. He knew he’d have to tell someone one of these days; he just didn’t want it to be Eleanor.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Oh, Cord, I am so sorry. That must have been terrible for you.”

  He said nothing. Yes, it had been terrible, but not in the way she thought. What came afterward was much worse.

  “However,” he said in an effort to lighten the moment, “my wife didn’t teach me to iron.”

  Eleanor sensed he didn’t want to be drawn further into talking about his wife.

  “It’s bad enough having a hired man who can bake pies and scrub dungarees. If you could do any more things, I would have nothing to do all day but rock in the porch swing, drink lemonade and read books.”

  * * *

  Eleanor spent the afternoon bent over the ironing board, running the sadiron over Danny’s school shirts and Molly’s ruffled pinafores. It was dreadfully hot. She swiped the perspiration off her forehead and attacked two of her white long-sleeved shirtwaists. All those ruffles! Why did she even bother? She never dressed up to impress anyone; when she was working around the farm she wore an old shirt of Tom’s.

  By the time she finished th
e ironing it was time to start supper, cold chicken left over from supper the night before and potato salad from the eggs and potatoes she’d boiled before breakfast. She chopped up an onion and a few dill pickles and was mixing it all up with a dollop of fresh mayonnaise when Danny burst in.

  “Gosh, Ma, I just about melted walking home from school! I sure wish you’d let me ride to school. How ’bout it, huh?”

  At that moment Cord came through the back door.

  “Cord has other things to do besides teach you to ride,” she said loudly.

  Cord stopped short and he and Danny exchanged a long, private look.

  “I’ll be mucking out the stable after supper,” he said. “You want to help, Dan?”

  “Uh, well...”

  Cord laughed and squeezed the boy’s shoulder. Eleanor noticed water droplets clinging to her hired man’s longish dark hair. She also noted how he kept brushing it out of his eyes.

  “You need a haircut,” she blurted out without thinking.

  “You think so?”

  “Oh, I—”

  “Yeah, you do, Cord!” Danny chortled. “You need a haircut. You look like old man Ness’s sheepdog.”

  “And you need one, as well, young man,” Eleanor announced. “After supper.”

  “Aw, Ma, have a heart.”

  “I do have a heart, Danny. I also have eyes. Your hair is so long you’re starting to look like a girl.”

  “I don’t neither! Do I, Cord?” The boy sent him a pleading look.

  “Well, son, if you look like a girl, I must look like Sadie Sunday.”

  “Who’s Sadie Sunday?”

  “A woman in a book with a shady reputation.”

  “Never you mind about Sadie Sunday, young man,” she said firmly. “Go find Molly and both of you wash your hands.”

  When he clattered out the back door and down the steps, Eleanor began laying out plates and forks, then set down the platter of cold chicken and the big ceramic bowl of potato salad.

  “When does your barbershop open?” Cord asked.

  “After we finish supper.”

  “What do you charge for a haircut?” he asked with a grin.