He gave her a half smile and a scowl. “Pretty enough to get me into trouble.”
Her face brightened. She tilted her chin higher, closed her eyes, and made her full lips part.
Seeing the expectant expression on her face, he was tempted. The idea of recapturing the pleasure he felt while kissing her pulled at him stronger than he would have liked. Cloaked in the cornstalks, it would be so easy to give her slow, shivery kisses without anyone seeing.
Staring at her inviting mouth, he lowered his head a few inches. He paused, contemplating the taste of her mouth against his. She’d be soft and damp, salty and sweet. He’d tease her lips apart this time, kissing her with more intimacy.
That last thought sobered him.
Intimacy. As in a very close association, familiarity and devotion. Words he couldn’t promise. Not to a woman like Amelia. And especially when Pap O’Cleary was counting off the days until he would marry her—never mind the man hadn’t bucked up enough nerve to ask her to the Fourth of July picnic.
Frank dropped his arms from around Amelia’s waist and took a step backward. “I think you better get inside. It’s too hot out here for you.”
Her eyes fluttered open, and she stared at him with a bewildered sparkle in her gaze.
“I’ll send Coney Island over to finish your lawn.” Frank steered Amelia out of the garden and across the grass toward her back porch. “I’m going to pay the kid to come once a week. Consider it a gesture of goodwill on my part with absolutely no strings attached.” He propelled her up the painted steps, deposited her in a green lawn settee, and stood over her. “If Dorothea Beamguard says the only way Junior will play the piano is at the Moon Rock, then that’s how it’ll be for now. I expect to see you there tomorrow at whatever the hell time it is you arrive. I won’t hear you come in, I sleep—”
“—like the dead,” she quoted him.
“Yeah.” He laughed in a low voice. “You know the routine, honey.” Adjusting the angle of his panama, he tipped his hat at her. “I have to confess, the place hasn’t been the same without you. I got used to having you around. So did Pap.”
A small, shy smile touched her moist lips.
Frank was frozen for a long moment by the expression on her beguiling face. Unbidden, he slowly leaned forward. But when her lashes began to lower, he realized what he was thinking and curbed his impulse to kiss her. Straightening, he shoved his hands in his pockets. He couldn’t keep doing this to himself. To her. Why was it, he had this need to get close to her? He’d never felt this way before about a woman, and it unsettled him.
“I have to get back to the Moon Rock,” he mumbled. “I’ll be seeing you.”
She nodded, but he barely noticed. As he walked down the steps, he began to wonder if it would have been better for him to concede the piano and cut his losses. Continuing to see Amelia Marshall five days a week could cost him a lot more than being minus a New American upright.
Chapter
12
On Monday, Amelia went to the mercantile to inform Dorothea Beamguard she was back teaching at the Moon Rock. The woman had been ecstatic and once again proposed Amelia give a small concert before the fireworks on the Fourth of July. Amelia went along with the idea to keep the peace.
Her first day back at the Moon Rock Saloon, Amelia was tense and nervous. Something special had sprung into existence between her and Frank in the corn rows of her garden, and she was reluctant to put a name to the intangible feeling. Friendship would have been the safest answer, but she knew there was more to it than that. She sensed Frank did, too.
Rather than sit in his favorite chair, drink a beer, and eat crackers during her practice time, he didn’t show his face until four o’clock—the designated hour he had occupancy of the upright. When she looked up at him from the piano stool, his gaze met hers. His eyes were a blue so familiar to her, she didn’t have to be close to him to recognize their dazzling color. He didn’t say a word and just studied her with unhurried intensity. She did likewise, noting he was freshly shaved, wore natural linen trousers, and sported a peacock green vest with gilded threads. His hair was damp from a comb and styled straight back from his forehead. Knowing he’d kissed her, and knowing how wonderful his mouth had felt on hers, she was hard-pressed to control the butterfly-like flutters in her rib cage.
Frank broke away first. He crossed to the bar, zipped some seltzer into a glass of ice, and drank it as if he were parched. Cobb Weatherwax came in with a few of the boys from the mill, so they had no opportunity to converse. But she felt him watching her back while she packed up her music bag. Just before she left, their eyes met over the hatted heads of men lined up at the bar. His parting look was so galvanizing it sent a tremor through her.
That Tuesday Amelia was afraid she was falling in love with Frank.
Wednesday she suspected her fears were sure.
On Thursday she made the hard-fought decision to make herself available to him . . . should he inquire. Which she almost hoped he wouldn’t. Thoughts of what happened with Jonas Pray were too fresh in her memory for her to jump blindly into another relationship. Though all men weren’t the same, Frank’s vocation paralleled a part of her past. She couldn’t ignore the pain and humiliation she’d suffered. If she lost her heart again, she would have to be sure she wouldn’t be hurt.
She and Frank had been treading lightly around each other all week, careful to be polite. Yet there was an underlying current that seemed to charge the room whenever they occupied it at the same time. Even so, she could practically count on one hand the number of times Frank spoke to her. What he lacked in conversation, Pap O’Cleary made up for tenfold.
Pap bragged about himself so much, Amelia was sure he had calluses on his hands from patting his own back. At first, she found his flagrant regard for her distressing, though not because she didn’t care for him. Like a barbed-wire fence, he had his good points. But she could not encourage him because she had strong affections for another tugging at her heartstrings.
Friday, Amelia decided to test those feelings. She dressed in her very best Eaton style summer suit of imported navy cloth. The skirt was lined with rustling taffeta and interlined with crinoline, and every step she took whispered like fall leaves. She had chosen a smart scarlet four-in-hand scarf for her neckwear and a hat of her aunt Clara’s she’d restyled with wired wings of lace and pretty bunches of wildflowers on the right and left sides.
Her first lesson was at one o’clock, and she’d finished her lunch early so she could go to Beam-guard’s Mercantile to purchase red, white, and blue paper festooning to decorate the piano on Sunday.
Opening the door to the general store, the pleasant smells of new merchandise and old wood wafted in the air: the pungency of ripe cheese and sauerkraut; the smell of bright paint on new toys; kerosene, lard and molasses, poultry feed, gun oil, calico, coffee, and tobacco smoke.
The right side of the store contained dry goods: shelves of yardage, ready-mades, and the cabinet of Clark’s Our New Thread. On the left was the grocery section: barrels of flour, sugar, and crackers, glass cases for cigars and penny candy, and a good array of cans, kegs, bottles, boxes, and bins. At the center stood the black potbellied stove gone cold for the summer. The chairs still circled around it with a chipped spittoon for the loungers.
Mr. Oscar Beamguard had been stocking jars of his wife’s fresh strawberry preserves for sale when she’d entered the store. He wasn’t nearly as skeptical as his wife—nor as round. In fact, he was slim as a bed slat, probably only producing a shadow when he faced west or east.
“Good afternoon, Miss Marshall.” He set up his last jam-filled mason jar, then climbed down from his stepladder. “What can I do for you?”
Amelia peered through the curved glass display at the Independence Day decorations of red, white, and blue items and the shining stars surrounding them. She wished she could afford handheld flags for all her students, but they were a penny apiece. Lifting her gaze to Mr. Beamguard, she sai
d, “May I buy the paper festooning by the yard, or do I have to purchase the roll?”
Mr. Beamguard stood over the case, absently adjusting the knot on his black tie. “It comes ten yards to a roll for twenty cents.”
“Oh.” Amelia did some quick calculating in her head. “All right. I’ll need a roll of each color.”
Oscar dropped open the lid on the case back and went to work. Amelia wandered through the store, looking at the various buttons and sewing accessories, thinking by next year she would be able to afford some of the more frivolous items.
The door opened, and she glanced up to see Emmaline Shelby coming inside. Amelia had to concede Emmaline didn’t appear wilted from the heat, even though she manned a washer and iron all day. Her black hair curled around her face beneath a straw bonnet tied under her chin with pretty yellow ribbon. Her cheeks had just the right amount of natural pink.
“I’ll be with you in a minute, Miss Shelby,” Oscar said as he began to wrap Amelia’s items in brown paper.
“I’m in no hurry,” she replied. “All I need is some blueing. While I wait, I’ll just look around.”
Amelia didn’t say a word; she pretended to be engrossed in a box of safety pins, hoping to avoid a confrontation.
“Miss Marshall,” Emmaline stated in an oh-so-casual tone. “I thought that was you. I recognized your suit.”
Amelia had to gaze at the woman and force herself to smile.
“I’ve always admired that color on you when you’ve worn it.” Emmaline paused, her voice too sweet.
Amelia felt herself stiffening, waiting for the blow.
“And you have worn that suit often. How long now?” Emmaline tapped her chin with a slim finger. “I think I’ve seen you in it for the past five years. At least.”
Before Amelia could launch a counter retort, her opponent was firing again. “And that hat. Is it new? No . . . I don’t think so. Why, it reminds me of the one your aunt always wore.” Emmaline took a step closer. “I can see now that it is. How clever of you to remodel it. Why I wish I was as creative as you.”
To anyone with any reason to listen—solely Mr. Beamguard—their conversation would have sounded like one woman complimenting the other. But Amelia knew an insult when she was the object of one. She racked her brain for something offensive, yet pleasant-sounding, to hit Emmaline with.
“Thank you, Miss Shelby,” she said with mock cordiality. “I do believe your sunburn is looking much improved today.”
Emmaline raised a hand to her cheek. “I don’t go in the sun without a bonnet.”
“Excuse me.” Amelia sounded appropriately apologetic. “It must be the heat of your washer, dear, that’s making your face so healthy.”
Emmaline squared her shoulders with a tiny squeak. “If you don’t mind, Mr. Beamguard, I’ll just help myself to the blueing and you can put it on my account.”
“Very well, Miss Shelby.”
Emmaline took the bottle from the shelf, then gave Amelia a silent glare. In a lowered voice, she warned, “Don’t think I’m not onto you. Fancying yourself up in Sunday clothes and dousing yourself with lemon verbena isn’t going to make him notice you. Frank doesn’t like a woman who’s not modern—modern in fashion, thinking, and music. He told me all you play are songs from dead people. Well, let me tell you, I know gay tunes and I sing them for Frank all the time.”
On that, she left energetically humming, “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”
Amelia was so vexed, she saw stars without having to look at the festive case of decorations. Ooh! That Emmaline Shelby was fast becoming a thorn in her side. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the woman hadn’t read her like the Gazette.
“Is there anything else, Miss Marshall?”
“Yes . . .” she said tentatively, thinking she would have to take drastic action. “I’ll be just minute.”
Amelia put the pins aside and strode to the wooden stand of sheet music. The selection wasn’t very large—there being only two pianos in all of Weeping Angel. But the owner of the Oak Tree Hotel, Eugene Thistlerod, did own a zither. And Saybrook Spivey had an accordion he’d play at social functions. Not to mention there were countless harmonica players in town.
She thumbed through the scant folios. At a glance, “Daisy Bell” looked complicated. There were many left-hand chords, and the song was spread out over five pages. Biting her lower lip, she set the music aside and continued her search. “In the Baggage Coach Ahead” had four flats. “Oh, Promise Me” had just as many flats—the same ones as “In the Baggage Coach Ahead”—but the lyrics were romantic. “Rock-a-Bye Baby” would be pushing things a bit far. Catching the corner of another she saw “Sweet Rosie O’Grady.” Then, just what she was looking for seemed to pop out at her, and she grabbed the last folio with a broad smile.
In the end, she chose six gay tunes she would have normally frowned upon. Setting them on the counter next to her streamers, she did frown when Mr. Beamguard totaled the cost of the music. She tried not to worry about it too much. Her students paid her on Friday and that was today. She’d just have to be more frugal on her grocery bill.
After exchanging money with Mr. Beamguard, Amelia gathered her parcel and departed. As she crossed Holy Road, she glanced down the street. The men’s dormitory that housed Reed’s sawmill workers and a few of the bachelors was that way on Gopher Road. She never would have paid it any mind, if not for the fact Pap O’Cleary resided there. As of late, he seemed to come out of nowhere to walk her to the saloon. It didn’t matter where she was coming from, he’d find her.
Stepping onto the corner, she gave the street one more gaze, just to make sure. She didn’t see a trace of him. She passed the doctor’s office, and as she did so, she thought of Narcissa, who was blossoming in her condition. Her sickness had eased and her color had returned. It was amazing the difference three weeks could make on a woman almost four months into the family way.
Amelia used her key to let herself inside the Moon Rock, then closed the door. She knew precisely where to find a lamp now. And the smells of stale cigars and spirits didn’t bother her as much as they used to. She still didn’t find the odors attractive, but she wasn’t sickened by them anymore.
After setting her music bag and package on the bar, she slipped off her gloves but kept her hat on. She went to the oil stove next to the icebox and lit the single burner. Then she prepared a pot of coffee so strong, the aroma of bubbling grounds was as thick as stew. Frank liked his coffee robust enough to float a silver dollar on it—at least that’s what she’d heard him say to Mr. O’Cleary once.
She arranged her piano teaching necessities as she normally did, all the while casting furtive glances at Frank’s closed apartment door. She couldn’t understand how he could sleep so soundly while she was making noise. There had been those few times when he rose early and surprised her, though that hadn’t happened recently.
She opened her parcel and shuffled through the music, knowing just the one she would select first. Putting it on the piano’s music stand, she scanned the notes, trying to get a sense of the tune before she played it. Then, feeling ready, she went directly into the chorus. She played the song with as much airiness as she could muster. After stumbling through it once, she tried again. The second try was much smoother, and by the third, she felt breezy.
If she hadn’t been blaring the piano keys, she probably would have heard Frank yelling at her. As it was, his shrill whistle between his fingers made her lift her head and take notice of him in the doorway. She stopped playing immediately, her eyes coming to rest on his exposed navel.
He wore a pair of form-fitting Derby ribbed drawers with three pearl buttons at the sateen waist placket—all of which were unbuttoned. The fine combed white cotton had to be staying up by sheer will alone. Since he’d let her know he slept without the benefit of a nightshirt, he must have slipped these on while half asleep. Was he aware they weren’t fastened?
“Hello, Frank.” Despite her pulse speeding, she tried
to sound very calm and matter-of-fact. “I didn’t know you were awake.”
“How could I sleep with you belting out that Tin Pan Alley stuff?” His tousled black hair fell into his eyes, and he combed it back with his splayed fingers. “Damn, I dreamed Emmaline was out here. That’s all she sings.”
Amelia’s nerves grew brittle, and she fought for a fitting reply. “Doesn’t everyone appreciate the melody of ‘Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!’? I just bought the sheet music this morning, along with a few others I find very contemporary.”
He hitched the band of his drawers higher on his hips, the sinewy cords of his legs stretching the thin material. Absently, he fit each tiny pearl button into its hole. A brief shiver rippled through her. She stared at his masculine hand, his powerful fingers as they worked to close the gap in his underwear. Even put together, she couldn’t refrain from taking in the thick definition of muscle on his chest, the flatness of his abdomen . . . and even the outline of his crotch.
She averted her eyes as he stepped into the room wrinkling his nose. “What’s that smell?”
Delighted, she said, “Coffee.”
“I wasn’t referring to the coffee.” He sniffed and made a face. “What’s that rotten lemons smell?”
Rotten lemons? On the pretext of smoothing her hair, she lifted her hand. She turned her nose into her wrist and quietly sniffed. No one had ever told her aunt Clara she smelled like a rotten lemon when she’d worn the perfume. Lemon verbena had a sweet lemony scent.
Amelia lowered her arm. “I don’t smell a thing offensive. Your nose must be playing tricks on you.”
“All I know is, I was in a deep sleep. Then I started dreaming Emmaline was out here singing her boom-de-ays off.”
Weeping Angel Page 19