“Oh, really? I’d have thought it very appropriate.” She shouldn’t encourage him, but she couldn’t resist. He had played the song very well, as nicely as she had ever heard it. “So what do you play on pipes? If you play them.”
He shoved the harmonica into his pocket, reached into the backpack resting on the ground near his feet and pulled out a set of well-polished pipes. He grinned evilly, leaned back against the stone wall, and played “Bonny Eloise.” Beautifully.
It was totally infuriating, and left her almost unable to say anything. It was one of her favorite old songs, one not often heard. She had never heard it played on pipes. “I suppose you carry those pipes around with you all the time?”
“Of course not. Nobody does that.” He shrugged, still grinning at her. “I’m on my way home from practice. A group I play with, Musical Madmen. We thought we might try something different for our next concert, like music from the Civil War era, or try some different instruments.” He looked at the pipes. “Like this maybe. Instead of a flute.”
She had heard of the group, had let them put a poster at her stand, but had never heard them play. “So you play the flute?” It was the band instrument she had tried to learn.
He shook his head. “Sometimes, but you can’t sing and play a flute. Or pipes. I usually do guitar.” He glanced at her again, not quite grinning. “Or a banjo. Sometimes.”
She refused to ask if he sang, or what he sang, although she wondered. He had a very nice speaking voice. Except that it could be caressing in its inflections, insinuating an intimacy she didn’t feel. Didn’t want to feel.
He continued as if she had commented, “I like the flute and piccolo, and I’ve tried clarinet, but,” he held up the pipes again, “I like old things, instruments and music.”
In spite of her better instincts, and to satisfy the curiosity he had piqued, she asked, “Why ‘Bonny Eloise’?”
His green-gray eyes twinkled at her, unnerving her again. “You have such lovely blue eyes. Like Eloise.”
She had no answer for that. “So what are you doing here?”
He leaned back again and smiled up at her, exuding the charm she was determined not to succumb to. “I was going by on my way home and saw you leave the store and go through the rose arbor. I figured you’d get here sooner or later. I decided to wait for you and practice a little.” He glanced sideways at her again. “I thought maybe you’d be more sociable this time.”
“I didn’t think this was on your way home.”
“It is if I chose to come this way.” He paused a moment and lost some of his rakishness. “And maybe there was a chance I could talk to you. Apologize for whatever it was I did.”
“You could just stop at the stand, you know.” Why am I standing here talking to him? But he plays so well, and so few people like that kind of music.
“I’ve been by a couple of times, picked up corn and stuff for supper. You usually aren’t there.”
No, Connie and Mavis tended it during the week. “I have other work to do.”
“That’s what Connie said. Your day job.” He returned the pipes to his pack and pushed himself upright. “Work does get in the way, doesn’t it?” He sighed elaborately. “So I had to figure out when you would be here, and where you would be.”
Why had Connie never mentioned his visits? She realized it was almost dark and she had left her basket of cucumbers at the edge of the garden. She turned away, “I have work to do. Here.”
“It’s too dark to work outside.”
“I like dusk. But I have to go back. I left my basket at the end of the row.”
Miles picked up his pack and slung it over one shoulder. “I’ll walk along with you, if you don’t mind.”
She didn’t ask why, simply turned her back on him, trying to ignore him.
But he was close beside her, not touching, matching his steps to hers. She found her basket and picked it up, still not saying anything. His presence was upsetting her equilibrium, disturbing her peace of mind, stirring emotions she did not want, at least not where Miles was concerned. He was much too egotistical, too self-assured.
He put his hand on the basket. “Let me carry that for you.”
Surprised, she surrendered it and turned to walk along the edge of the garden, toward the stand where she could leave the basket for tomorrow. That route, the shortest way, led through the rose arbor.
He stopped just before they reached it. “This is such a lovely thing.” He glanced at her. “A place just made for romance.”
She laughed. “It was my great-grandmother’s idea.”
“She apparently had some nice ideas.”
“I’ve heard she had some very romantic notions. I never met her.” She stepped away from him and walked quickly through the arbor.
He asked from behind her, “And you never have any?”
“I try not to.” She took the basket from his hand.
“Maybe you should. Once in a while.”
“Maybe.”
He stepped out into the fading ambient light behind her.
It was now too dark for her to see his face, and Althea couldn’t tell what he was thinking. She thought she knew what he might have in mind, but she wasn’t interested. As good looking and charming as he might be, he was not what she wanted. She said, “Thank you, Miles.” She added, trying to make it sound like an afterthought and not really a compliment, “You do play those pipes very well, and ‘Bonny Eloise’ is one of my favorites.”
“Then I will make it one of mine. And play it on something else. Just for you.”
That was a pick-up line she hadn’t heard before, but she knew few musicians. At least none that played nineteenth century songs. ‘Bonny Eloise’ was a little old-fashioned. She couldn’t think of a rejoinder.
“I’ll be back, Althea. In daylight.” That sensuous, caressing, tone was back in Miles’ voice. She stiffened her resolve and she had a momentarily new take on the expression ‘undressing her with his eyes.’ It was a new experience, and an unpleasant one. She stepped away from him and toward the stand, hurrying. He followed closely behind.
A motion sensor light suddenly brightened as they rounded the corner of the stand. His Jeep wasn’t in the parking space. She paused. “I thought you said you saw me as I left here.”
“I parked up the road a ways when I saw you going into the gardens.” He grinned at her. “That’s when I decided to stop and go meet you.”
She should have said, and you could have kept on going. But she didn’t. She watched him walk across the parking area and turn toward his home. When he was gone, she put the basket of cucumbers on a bench and went home herself, a little unsettled and leaving a lot of things undone that she had planned to do.
She needed a good cup of tea.
SUNDAY
Sunday afternoon was pleasantly warm with a gentle breeze and a few cotton ball clouds floating overhead. It was much cooler than the past few days but with no promise of the needed rain. The cooler air provided Althea with more incentive to be outside after she closed the stand. She strolled, as usual, through the rose arbor and then into the gardens, checking as always on the progress and condition of the plants. Ed had found the time, or the inclination, to cultivate, clearing the aisles between the rows of the tangle of grass and weeds. The rows themselves were assiduously weeded. Each carrot and turnip stood straight and tall, clear of its neighbors. But they needed more water.
She walked toward the pumpkin patch, dismayed again at the tiny trickle of water from the drip system that should have been providing a small but much steadier stream. Walking stirred up small puffs of dust that shouldn’t be there. She had not turned the system off this morning as she usually did. She knew the moisture would simply evaporate, but she hoped – probably in vain—that even the small amount of w
ater it dispensed would help. She had turned it on last evening as usual, but again had the usual disappointing results. She didn’t know what else to do, who she could turn to. She stood, hands in her pockets, gazing over her small domain, her kingdom, her life’s work. Miles said from behind her, “It’s really something, Thea.”
She glanced over her shoulder at him. What is he doing here? How did he get here without my noticing? Was he hiding somewhere, waiting for me? Watching me? What does he want?
On the other hand, his attention was flattering. She could think of nothing to say, and didn’t answer him.
He seemed not to notice that she hadn’t greeted him. “Back there on that stone wall,” he gestured across the field. “There are vines all over it. What are they? It doesn’t look like poison ivy.”
She laughed. “Hops.”
He looked beyond her, towards the wall. “What? Really?”
“Hop vines,” she said. “Some ancestor back in the early 1800s planted them. He made his own beer and sold the hop flowers to a brewery in Boston.” She turned to face him. “Hops were a big cash crop back then, and Boston had a lot of breweries. There are still a lot growing wild on the old fences.”
He gazed intently toward the distant wall for a long minute and then said wistfully, “I’ve always kind of wanted to do that.”
“Do what?” She didn’t care, but was intrigued that he had some kind of agricultural interest. Something other than me. If he is interested in me.
“Make beer. My own beer. I’ve tried a lot of the new craft stuff and some of it is pretty good.” He regarded her soberly, and for once without his infuriating grin. “Ted was looking at some of the outbuildings with an old neighbor, wondering what they had been used for. He found out one of them is a hop house.”
“A what?”
He did grin then, impishly. “A hop house. The place where they dried the flowers. I guess the Loomises never made beer, but they never got rid of the drying racks. Just pushed everything aside and used the place to store machinery.”
“Oh.” That was what most old farmers did. You never knew when you might need something again. Her barn was full of her grandfather’s maybe-I’ll-need-it-someday odds and ends.
Miles turned his gaze back to the pumpkin patch. “I’ll have to do a little looking into that. Unless,” he raised his eyebrows in her direction, “they’re something you harvest. Or somebody else does.”
She laughed. “No. Nobody wants them. If you want to give beer a try, be my guest. I’ve left them because they aren’t in my way and they’re interesting. Like a piece of history.”
He didn’t comment, nor did he move, his gaze still on the distant wall, so she asked, “What are you doing here? After rehearsal again?”
He shook his head, turning enough to meet her eyes. “I know you usually come out here after you close the stand. I thought I’d find you sitting in the arbor.”
She didn’t ask why he was looking for her. “No, not today. I have problems to take care of.”
“And what would those be, fair lady?”
His blithe tone grated, along with his affected show of gallantry. “Those all farmers have. Right now, a shortage of water. Well, not really a shortage, but the inability to get it out here.”
He looked down at his feet and scuffed at the dirt with the toe of his sandal. “You have what looks like a drip system. It’s an efficient and water-saving device, and if there is a water source it should be soaking in where you need it.” He glanced up at her, his face serious. “Isn’t that what you want?”
She blew out a long breath. “It doesn’t work properly.” She disliked admitting it, and certainly didn’t like his air of superiority or his know-it-all attitude, but she had reached her limit of patience with the system not working. Not that he can help me any.
“Really? Let me take a look at it.”
She bridled. “I’ve had it looked at. By the installer. He said there was nothing wrong with it.”
“But it doesn’t work?”
She shook her head. “I’m apparently doing something wrong. That’s what he said, at least.”
“So let me look at it.”
“Why? Are you an engineer now, or something?”
He stiffened his stance, drew in a deep breath, glanced sideways at her and shrugged elaborately. “I’ve always liked mechanical puzzles, and this sounds like one. Besides,” he added with a grin, “If it isn’t working now, I can’t make it any worse, can I?”
She really couldn’t argue with that. And maybe, just on the off-chance, he would see what was wrong and do something about it. She sighed, “Well, all right. I’ll show you where the pump is.”
He grinned. “Lead on, Althea, mia.”
Now fully annoyed, but resigned, she led him to a small building behind the barn. “The pump house. This well serves only the irrigation system, and there seems to be enough water. At least there always was, according to Uncle Raymond.”
He surveyed the pump, the array of pipes and fittings, hands in his pockets and chewing at his lower lip, and shrugged. “It looks like an ordinary set-up to me.”
She laughed, more in frustration than mirth. “Well, look at it to your heart’s content. I have some other things to do.”
He glanced sideways at her. “And where will you be?”
“In the garden. Probably pulling weeds.” She turned away. “Have fun.”
He asked, “Do you have tools around somewhere? Wrenches or something? I don’t know what I might need.”
She hadn’t thought of that. Of course he would need tools. She pointed to a door at the back of the small room. “Ed keeps a lot of stuff in there. I have no idea what’s there.”
He looked that way and shrugged again. “Okay. There must be some around. I’ll find something. I guess.”
I should probably show him where they are, but . . . “I’m afraid I’m not much help. Pumps and things are not my specialty.” She didn’t like the sudden vision of herself alone with Miles in the closet.
He smiled at her again, disconcertingly caressing. “They aren’t really mine, either, but I’ll manage. For you.”
She said again, “Have fun,” and strode away. She needed to get away.
If he replied, she didn’t hear him. Away from him, she considered her rudeness. He was just offering to help, wasn’t he? Just being neighborly, and if he had the knowledge to help why shouldn’t she accept it? Away from him, she could resolutely push aside her confused feelings and get on with her work. But if he really could fix the system . . .
She wondered for a moment what he might charge for the work if he did get it to operate properly. She really hoped he could. She put the thought of compensation out of her mind. Whatever it cost, it would probably be worth it. Maybe, after all, he was just a con man. Maybe he really was an engineer. She resolutely squared her shoulders. I can certainly take care of myself, whatever he is. Whoever he is. Whatever he wants.
Althea went back to the stand, swept the floor, and rearranged the counter by the cash register to better display her neighbor’s collection of handcrafted baskets. In another few weeks, she could fill them with a variety of ornamental gourds. All she had right now was a selection of dried mushrooms, the product of another local hobbyist, and goats milk soap from another.
Finished and almost satisfied with the results, she wiped her hands on her jeans and decided to walk out and see what Miles was doing about the irrigation. As much as she wanted it fixed, needed it repaired, she almost hoped that he would not be the one to find the problem. He was much too smug already, apparently too confident that she would agree with whatever he had in mind. And just what is it that he has in mind?
She stopped at the end of the shed when she heard him singing. He had a very pleasant baritone, clear and true.
He was singing “The Whistling Gypsy.” She listened, enjoying its rollicking rhythm and the ancient story it retold, but she turned back without approaching him. He was being much too obvious. He will not win the heart of this lady!
But he had a very nice voice.
~ ~ ~
She was pulling weeds from among the squash and cucumber vines when she heard water gurgling. She located the closest line and watched water spreading quietly over the parched ground. She breathed a long sigh of relief—he actually made it work!—and then went to look for Miles to express her genuine appreciation. She owed him at least that much.
And to find out what had been wrong, and what he had done to fix it. And what it was going to cost her.
Miles was standing in the door to the room where the pump was, his attention wholly on the water system inside. He was holding a wrench of some sort loosely in one hand.
She stopped beside him and said inadequately, “You got it working, Miles! Great. There’s water out there in the cucumber patch. Finally.”
He turned toward her, grinning broadly. “So that last idea worked?” He dropped the wrench, caught Althea around the waist with one arm, swung her around, her feet off the ground, and kissed her. Heartily. “Let’s celebrate.” He set her down but didn’t let go, keeping his eyes on hers.
She caught her breath and pulled away from him. Not out of his grasp, but catching some of his exuberance and smiling. “So what did you do? What was wrong?”
He released her, laughing, but still holding her hand. “Just a snafu. A couple of lines were reversed and a valve wasn’t in right.”
“So it was just installed wrong? My contractor . . .”
“No. It was more than that.” He stepped to the side of the pump, tugging her with him. “This,” he said, pointing to a section of the pipe, “was backwards. Your installer wouldn’t have noticed it unless he took it apart. And he apparently didn’t think to do that.”
Any Rainy Thursday Page 4