by Jill Barnett
Addie broke a plate. She turned and pinned him with the coolest look she could muster. "Don't do me any favors."
He returned her look. "I wasn't. It'll save them going out of their way. They'll have a full wagon to boot."
"Fine." She turned back to banging the dishes in the tin tub.
"I'll pay you for Will and my meals." He had to raise his voice over the racket she made with the dishes.
She gave an irritated sigh and turned around again. "I don't want your money."
His neck turned purple again. "Why the hell not?"
Addie held her head high, despite her vulnerable insides, and said, "Because, Mr. Creed, if I took your money I'd feel like a harlot."
He looked as if she'd slapped him, and he searched her face for a moment. She didn't flinch, didn't even take a breath. A second later the door slammed shut.
And then she cried.
* * *
Addie's squat heels clapped like clogs on the hollow plank steps of the Four Corners Presbyterian Church. The jangle of a harness signaled that the wagon had pulled away. She refused to look back, even though it took every ounce of her willpower. Custus and Will had ridden in the back of the wagon, leaving the minute wagon seat for Montana and her. She had been prepared for the ride, but not for the feel of his hands spanning her waist when he lifted her onto the seat. The other night his hands had spanned her bare waist just like that, lifting her over and over.
From the moment he held her again, she had been aware of Montana. He talked with the other two men and she had felt the timbre of his voice flow like blood through her. His arm brushed hers and chills blistered on her skin; his scent assailed her senses and brought to mind the one thing Addie wanted to forget—their bedding.
Now, when she paused at the church door with her hand on the cool brass knob, Addie tried to push the man from her silly mind. I'm okay, she thought, opening the door and entering the vestibule.
She was wrong. Rebecca stood a few feet away, as if she'd been waiting there. She glanced at Addie and then spoke to a gathering of the younger women. "I dreamed of Montana last night." Then she sighed for effect.
Addie straightened her shoulders and sailed right by. "I'm sorry to hear you're having nightmares, Rebecca."
Lizzie giggled—God love her—which got the others doing the same. She latched onto Addie's tense arm and introduced her to the other women. In a matter of minutes she relaxed, for the women were kind and made her feel as if she'd known them all for years.
Standing in the small, narrow church for the first time was an odd experience for Addie. It was filled with the women of Bleeding Heart, most of them strangers until a few minutes ago, and yet she felt such a part of them. Children whooped and cried and ran in wild, chickenlike circles around the wooden pews, yet there was an odd sense of peace that prevailed within the whitewashed walls. A huge, cherry wood pump organ stood to the left of the altar as proud and straight and dominant as Eden's apple tree. Deep red hymnals were stacked at the end of each pew and a great, gold-edged, black leather bible lay open on a plain pine stand near the pulpit. The room was spotless and smelled of candlewax and almond oil and pine tar, except for an occasional whiff of lavender water or verbena perfume worn by its occupants. The rich knotty-pine floors shone like glass in the warmth of oil lamps and flickering candles. The Four Corners Church was a small-town monument to its residents' pride and faith. And as Addie settled into a pew, with Lizzie at her side, she became one of them.
She smiled. She was home.
By eight-thirty the wives of farmers and the town's businesses alike had told of how the railroad, with their escalating freight rates and crooked practices, were bleeding profits, savings, and in some cases destroying the property of people throughout the state. The railroads owned—through blatant practices of graft and bribery—the large newspapers, the law enforcement agencies, and many of the regional courts.
It didn't take long for the plans to be made. Two weeks from that night, the town would host a barbecue and dance, just like on the Fourth of July. It would be held at the grange hall, and the proceeds from the food and the dance would raise money to help sponsor the grange's legislative bid for state and local regulation of the railroad.
Each woman volunteered her share, everything from a pot of baked beans and a whole, butchered cow to Martha Bickerson's promise of her husband's fiddling and Annie Pearson's offer of all the liquid refreshment, coffee, lemonade, sarsaparilla, and—some of the women groaned—beer.
Hettie leaned to Addie and said, "Let's bring the fried chicken. I've got plenty of cockerels, and some of your aunt's layers are old enough to slaughter."
Addie's stomach dropped. She hadn't planned on slaughtering any chickens for a while. Her face reflected her thoughts.
"Lizzie'll come help you," Hettie added.
Anxious to please, Addie agreed, and they started a list. Then Rebecca popped off sweetly, "I'll make my apple cake, Mother." She paused and looked at Addie. "Montana said he loved apple dessert."
"Fine, Becky," Hettie said distractedly while she kept writing on an offering envelope.
Lizzie leaned closer to Addie and whispered, "Becky almost crammed the whole cake down that poor man's throat."
Addie giggled, then grew thoughtful and leaned closer to Lizzie. "Did he really say that?"
"What?" Lizzie asked.
"About the desserts."
Lizzie nodded.
Then Hettie stood and announced, "The Latimer women and Addie Pinkney will bring…" She glanced at her list. "Ten fried chickens, five jars of brandied peaches, one apple cake, two loaves of molasses breads—''
"And three apple pies," Addie spouted off without a thought.
Lizzie laughed out loud and Rebecca's beautiful blue eyes narrowed to ice chips.
The challenge was on.
Montana didn't hear a thing Will or Custus said. His thoughts followed his eyes, and they were locked on Addie's behind. He watched her go up the front steps of the farmhouse and go inside. A small bit of light glowed from behind her as she closed the front door, blocking her from his thoughtful gaze. Of their own accord his eyes drifted to the front window. The shades were up, and he watched her remove her shawl. Her arm reached up to hang up the shawl and his eyes locked on her small body. She was such a tiny thing. Bending down, she picked up the lamp and disappeared from view. The strangest thing happened. Montana felt sad.
He had no idea how long he stood there staring at the dark house. He only knew that when he turned toward the barn, both Custus and Will were gone. By the time he crossed the barn, checked on the horses' feed and water, he could hear the snores coming from the small room off the barn where the men bunked. Ducking under the low doorway, he went inside. A dim lantern burned in the corner.
The light was necessary since the room was still filled with the menagerie of tools left by Addie's uncle. Montana had removed the bigger tools—the wheelbarrow, a few coulters for the plow, and an old thresher—the first night he'd slept there. The next day he'd pulled out what he needed and then piled the duplicates and others in the corner. They still sat there.
Custus had built a wall cot in the right corner, and Will had his bedroll on the opposite side. The old man snorted a loud snore, then turned over and slept more quietly. Montana sat on his cot and pulled off his boots. He stripped and stretched out on top of the rough woolen blanket. It made him itch. He tried to ignore it, and the memory of Addie's fine, crisp sheets, but he failed because the memory set the direction of his thoughts. Montana couldn't get her off his mind.
During the grange meeting he'd been plagued by flashes of her—images of black hair and white skin, of a small, proud nose that shot up at the blink of an eye, and the words she'd spoken. I'd feel like a harlot, she'd said, and it had hit him like a fist in his gut. For the first time in Montana Creed's life he was ashamed of his behavior. He wanted this farm, wanted it more than anything, but he had to accept the fact that he wanted her too.
But she wanted love, like most women. Hell, he didn't even know what the word meant anymore. He'd loved his parents, they had been his youthful world, but when they died, so did any vestiges of that love. There had been women in his life, mostly tall, buxom women who had whet his appetite and who knew he would leave when the appetite was satisfied. But with Addie it was different. He was still hungry.
Lacing his hands behind his head, he stared at the rough rafters above him. He'd messed up, handling that damn marriage proposal about as well as she handled his horse. He wanted the farm, but he wanted her too, and if that meant marriage, then he'd do it. Hell, if she left now, he'd never have a moment of mental peace. Exactly what he'd been afraid of happening, had—he cared what happened to Little Miss Pinky.
The problem now was that he had to find a way to get her to forget what happened. He needed another plan, and had a hunch that seduction probably wouldn't work twice. Although, there was the old adage that if something worked once, it just might work again. He'd have to be less aggressive, that he knew. This time he'd ease his way into it, because he didn't want to chase her away. This time he wanted to catch her.
Chapter 17
Pardon me?" Addie was sure she'd heard her wrong. Lizzie couldn't have said that.
Lizzie was bent over one of Addie's feeders, examining the chicks. She straightened and repeated her question. "I asked if the chicks have been sexed."
Addie's face was bright red. "Aren't they too young for… for, uh, that kind of behavior?"
Lizzie's burst of laughter rang clear through the chicken-house, letting Addie know immediately that she'd said something stupid again.
"I'm sorry for laughing, Addie, but you looked so horrified. Sexing means separating the cockerels from the pullets, male from female."
"Oh," Addie said on a sigh of relief, before muttering a quiet "thank God" under her breath. Then she added, "The book didn't say anything about that."
"That's okay," Lizzie told her in a cheerful voice. "I'll teach you and you'll be a—'' She stopped and gave Addie a wicked grin. "…sex authority in no time."
I already am, Addie thought, covering her fallen face with a false smile.
"Here's what you do." Lizzie bent over and picked up a chick. "Grab a hold on its feet, like this, then hold it upside down, like this." She dangled the cute little chick by its feet and the chick popped its head up, trying to peck at the girl's fingers. "There, see it bring its head up and try to peck me?"
Addie nodded.
"That means it's a male, a cockerel."
"Oh," Addie said, thinking it figured the males would peck. Then she asked, "What do the females do?"
"They just dangle there." Lizzie rolled her eyes.
"You're kidding."
The girl shook her carrot-red head.
"That's not very liberated of them," Addie said, remembering that once Montana's hands were on her, she'd acted pretty passive herself. She bent and grabbed a chick.
"Chickens aren't very smart either." Lizzie picked up another one. "We'll need to mark them. Do you have any leg rings?"
Again Addie didn't have the faintest idea what she was talking about.
"Red twists of wire to put on their legs," Lizzie explained with the patience of a true friend.
Addie snapped her fingers. "I saw something like that in the cellar. I'll be right back." She ran into the house and to the cellar doors. Then she skidded to a stop. Tentatively she pulled the doors open, suddenly sure that her cellar would be a teeming snake pit. She grabbed a lamp and lit the wick before she descended the stairs with the same speed as Custus on a slow day. Holding the lamp out in front of her, she eased down the stairs, her eyes whipping from corner to corner on snake patrol.
She reached the last step and looked for the glass jar with the red twists that she'd spotted on one of her first trips down there. It sat by the milk cans. With her heart throbbing in her ears, she ran over, grabbed the jar, and was back on the steps before she had a chance to take another breath. She listened. There was nothing but silence, so she calmed herself, ascended the stairs and rejoined Lizzie.
"Are these them?" Addie held up the jar.
"They sure are." Lizzie plucked a fingerful of twists from the jar and began twisting her wires onto the leg of a chick she took out of a feed box hung near the door.
Addie started to work. She bent, dangled, and marked chick after chick.
"Addie…'' Lizzie said a few minutes later.
"Hmmm?" Addie twisted the tie on her latest cockerel.
"All the chicks I've checked are cockerels." Lizzie stared at her. "That's unusual."
Addie stopped. "So are mine."
"Where'd you buy these chicks?"
"On the Livermore road. A big, broken-down place that belongs to—''
"The Potters." Lizzie finished the sentence and leaned against the wall of the henhouse, shaking her head. "You got taken, Addie. Those two are almost worse crooks than the railroad."
Addie gaped at all her chicks. "You mean these are all cockerels?"
"Probably." Lizzie's face was all sympathy.
"Dadgummit!" Addie began to pace the little room, dodging chickens as she walked. "What am I going to do with all cockerels? That means none of them lay eggs!"
"Cockerels are fine eating," Lizzie told her cheerfully.
"Lizzie, even those three men out there couldn't eat that many cockerels."
"You could sell them," she suggested.
"That's true. At least they aren't completely worthless." Addie stared with defeated eyes at her chickens, the ones that would never produce a single egg. Then she looked at the jar of twists. "Do you think we need to mark them all?" She couldn't keep the hope out of her voice.
Her friend slowly shook her head.
"That's what I thought," Addie said. "Let's go."
The two women left the henhouse and walked across the chicken yard. When they reached the gate, they heard loud hammering, some wild gobbles, and Custus swearing the air blue.
"Dadburned, gull darn, cursed piece of crap! This here thing's 'bout as worthless as a pail of horse slobber." The hammer sailed across the yard to the accompaniment of guttural turkey screeches.
Addie picked up the hammer, and the women exchanged amused looks before joining the scowling old man at the turkey pen he was repairing.
Addie approached him. "What's wrong, Custus?"
"I'll tell ya what's wrong. That dadblamed hammer's too big fer these here nails!" He banged a fist against the pen post and then muttered, "Shoulda knowed somethin' a-like this'd happen. That there south door of the barn stayed open on its own."
Lizzie, wearing a baffled look on her face, looked at Addie, who held her hand up to stop the question she knew was coming. "Just wait a second."
"Ever'one knows that's a sign of them haints."
"Haints?" Lizzie leaned toward Addie and whispered.
"Haunts. Custus is a bit superstitious," Addie explained. "Would a smaller hammer help?"
" 'Course a smaller one'd help. I already telled ya that this here one's too big."
"I remember seeing a whole slew of hammers in that workroom in the barn. Isn't that where you're all sleeping?" Addie asked.
"Well, since I been a-sleepin' in that there room, there ain't been no hammers," Custus said with all the tact and kindness of a charging bull.
"I'll be right back," she said, spinning on her heel and disappearing inside the dark barn. She went into the workroom, but didn't see any hammers in the tools that were piled in the room's cluttered corner. She crossed the barn and found a small area of equipment and tools behind a stack of hay bales. Everything was in crates, with no rhyme or reason to how they were stored.
"How can he find anything in this mess?" she muttered, fumbling through each crate until she finally found a smaller hammer.
"I ain't got all dadblamed day!" The peal of Custus's grouchy voice echoed through the barn's rafters, so Addie left the mess of tools and took
him the smaller hammer.
She walked back into the bright sunlight and was momentarily blinded. When the spots cleared she saw Montana and Will leaning on the top rail of the turkey pen, talking to Lizzie. Addie slowed her approach, but her heartbeat sped up and her stomach took a little, aching leap.
Montana towered over the pen, with one long, tight leg resting casually on one of the lower rails. His hat was tipped back and she could see the dampness on his tanned face. Some of his brown hair had slipped from the rawhide strip he used to tie it back; it curled around his ears and neck. His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, exposing the thick, brown hair on his forearms as they rested on the top rail of the pen. She remembered running her hands up his arms of steel when he strained above her on the bed.
With that thought, Addie's temperature must have risen ten degrees, and she felt every single degree. She couldn't tear her eyes away from him, and didn't even try, because it was fruitless. She loved him, whether he loved her or not, and there wasn't a thing she could do about it. So, unknowingly, she caressed him with her eyes as he quietly stood watching the turkeys with Lizzie and Will.
"Oh, there she is!" Lizzie waved at Addie. "Come on over and see this, Addie!"
She walked up to them, following Lizzie's pointed finger to where the turkeys gathered in the middle of the pen. She could feel the heat of Montana's look, but she wouldn't allow herself to look at him, at least not just yet.
A turkey hen pecked at the seed on the ground, and a big torn turkey, all nutty brown, paced in a circle around the hen. His chestnut-feathered tail fanned out like an Elizabethan collar and his chest puffed out twice its normal size. He scratched at the ground, sending dust up behind him, and then a loud gobble pierced the air. The hen glanced up once, looked bored and resumed her eating.
"What's he doing?" Addie asked.
It was Montana's deep voice that answered, "Courting the hen."
Addie didn't budge.
The torn paced back and forth, puffing and scratching and lifting his proud tail, then he strolled past the hen and drooped his wings until they dragged on the ground. Lizzie's laughter was contagious. It was the silliest thing Addie'd ever seen. The torn puffed, drooped, fanned, and gobbled over and over while the hen ignored his dramatics.