Still, she wasn't about to turn her back on such amenities. Who would? She liked hearing the sound of a horn tooting in the street, looking up to see someone she knew, and returning their broad smile. She relished feeling welcome and accepted. She reveled in the attention.
"Hellfire and damnation, boy!" Wilbur Jordan complained from his customary place at the end of the bar. "Ya been tryin' to teach that poor little thing to two-step for close to a month now. It's a wonder she can still wait tables the way ya been stompin' on her feet."
It was Saturday afternoon, and the bar was all but empty save the few regulars who came and left early, more interested in catching up on the town gossip than in drinking. Bryce had become one of these regulars, stopping in after work or on Saturday afternoons, using the pretense of giving Ellis another dancing lesson.
He stopped mid-hop, winked at Ellis, then turned a flat expression on Wilbur. "I ain't the one stompin' over here," he said. "I'm the one that's feelin' toes I never knew I had before."
At one time Ellis might have taken offense at his remark, but they had long since come to the unspoken understanding that the exercise was aimed more at facilitating close physical contact than at learning to dance. Besides, she'd already mastered several steps and was growing more confident. . . . More confident about everything, actually.
She'd left Stony Hollow with nothing but the hope that she wouldn't starve to death before she could return. Now she had half the money she needed, work, friends, the knowledge that she could survive outside Stony Hollow, and the freedom to do it.
"If ya think you can do better, old man, be my guest," Bryce said good-naturedly. "No sense in me hobblin' around town by myself. Hope your bones ain't too brittle."
“I’ll brittle your bones, boy," Wilbur threatened, chuckling as he slipped off his stool and ambled onto the small dance floor. "What I wanna know is where in hell ya learned all the hoppin' and skippin' ya do? Where'd your people live before they come here? West Virginia?"
Bryce grimaced and wagged his head. "Laugh now, ya ol' coot. You'll be sobbin' in your beer soon enough.''
He turned to Ellis, brought her hand to his lips in a Fred Astaire fashion, and kissed it softly. His gaze rose to meet hers, twinkling happily. He grinned at her and her pulse jumped—a reaction she'd come to appreciate and anticipate. He had a way of looking at her that was almost tangible, that touched her like a tender caress that made her feel like no words could. It made her want to reach out and pull him close to her before he disappeared.
Her muscles tensed in preparation to do just that when he relinquished her hand to Wilbur, saying, "Be gentle with him, Ellis. He's old."
"Peacock," the old gentleman muttered, taking her young hand into his bony one. "I seen Mack trucks turn quarter-ton loads smoother than you turn this little bit o' girl. Ya gotta know how to handle a gal like this," he said, assuming a formal dance position with an affection-filled smirk for his partner. Abruptly, he pulled her smack up against him, saying, "She ain't no high-strung, high-steppin' filly ya can bounce around the floor with. This sweet thing has both feet firmly planted on the ground." He started to shuffle in rhythm to the music, and she followed, too startled to do anything else. "She's earthy and old-fashioned, the way a gal oughta be," he said.
Shuffle, shuffle, step, shuffle, step. He nodded his head once for emphasis, then gave her a toothy grin— minus one or two in front.
Much to Bryce's chagrin, Ellis caught on quickly, and the better she got at the shuffling, the faster Wilbur danced. Before long he was lifting his feet off the floor and had Ellis doing the same until she was dancing the two-step as if she'd been doing it since the first covered wagon topped the mountains.
And she was smiling, a sight that was rare and breathtaking. A sight that was fast becoming as vital to Bryce's existence as his next heartbeat. She was too serious minded, he thought. She worked too hard and worried too much about everything.
Watching her dance, he'd have sold his soul to be able to crawl inside her mind and erase the greater part of her memories, to be able to draw new ones for her—love, happiness, security, contentment.
What got to him most were the times he'd catch her deep in thought with a troubled brow and profound sadness inscribed in the fine lines of her face. It tore him up inside to take a step backward, to remind himself to go slow with her, that she wouldn't appreciate his invasion of her troubles.
Weeks had gone by since they'd first met, and day by day he'd watched her unfold like a prize-winning rosebud. He'd been careful not give her too much heat, had refrained from asking all the questions that plagued his mind. He'd taken pains to water and nurture their relationship, offering not too much and hoping it wasn't too little.
Touching her was the hardest temptation to resist. Her beauty and softness called out to him, the smell of her drove him wild. It was unreasonable to think that touching her would somehow change her perfection, even as tenderly and as sweetly as he wanted to touch her. But in spite of her widowhood, he sensed a purity, an innocence, a certain lack of knowledge in her when they kissed.
Oh, the instincts were there, he thought, shifting his weight uncomfortably against the table on which he sat while she danced with Wilbur, recalling the way she would press herself against him when they kissed, as if she were trying to melt into him. The instincts were there, screaming back and forth between them, wanting and pleading, but still . . .
"Ya see there, boy?" Wilbur called out over the music, a bit winded. "Ain't nothin' to it. She's a natural, she is. And as light as the wind."
Ellis beamed brightly in response to Wilbur's praise.
The old man looked into her face and added, "Prettier than any summer day I ever saw."
He wasn't the only one vying for Ellis's smiles, Bryce noted, pushing himself off the table, feeling a pang of jealousy that he knew was irrational.
“Time to give the wind back to me, ol' man," he said lightly. "Bernice'll skin ya alive if she walks in here and sees ya lookin' at Ellis that way."
"Bernice who?" Wilbur asked, winking broadly at Ellis.
"Your wife?" he said, slipping between the two dancers. "Big woman? Ugly enough to turn a train down a dirt road? Handy with a hatchet?"
"I'm gonna tell her ya said all them things ‘bout her, boy," Wilbur threatened, cackling, taking no offense at the description of the woman who'd been his wife for more years than he could remember. "I been tellin' her for years that ya sweet-talk her the way ya do, so's she'll knit ya them fancy huntin' socks ya like."
"Warmest socks I ever owned." He grinned at Ellis, taking Wilbur's warning for the malarkey it was. Bernice Jordan was Webster's official town grandma, charitable, doting, and loved by all. "I'll tell her you're lyin'."
Wilbur walked back to his stool, laughing heartily.
"Bernice ain't a big woman," Ellis said, a frown furrowed between her brows. "And she ain't ugly."
"She knits great socks, though," he said, accepting her lack of humor, taking her into his arms while the records changed in the jukebox. He hand-picked the next one. It was slow, easy, and romantic. His kind of song.
"I gotta work," she said, dodging his grasp. "And ya shouldn't talk ill of Bernice. She's the sweetest—"
He rolled his eyes heavenward and broke in on her tirade. "I was jokin', Ellis. For cryin' out loud! I've known her since I was ..."
Walking toward the bar, she glanced over her shoulder at him. He saw the grin and the teasing sparkle in her eyes and knew the joke was on him. There was hope for her yet, he decided with growing regard.
"Gettin' real smart, ain't ya?" he said, trying hard not to smile as he followed her off the floor.
“Yes, sir, I am," she said, acting cocky. "Smart about you, anyway."
"What's that mean?" He settled himself on a stool, rubbernecking to see her face as she bent over the sink behind the bar, washing empty beer glasses. "What's that mean? Smart about me?"
“You're a flirt."
"Me?" H
e was going to deny it but thought better of it. "Well, maybe I do a little."
"A little? You sweet-talk every woman to cross your path. Looty. Bernice. Anne. Me. Poor Mrs. Elliot down at the fillin' station. Lord knows who else."
"I don't flirt with Anne. Buck'd kill me," he said, lying to see her reaction.
She was flabbergasted.
"Are ya even goin' to deny that ya flirt with me?" she asked.
"I do flirt with you. I flirt with all the ladies I want somethin' from. It's part of my charm."
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. '"What are ya tryin' to charm from me?"
His grin was slow and mischievous. He looked at her in a way he had that aroused the jitterbugs in her stomach and sent her heart skipping about in her chest.
"My mama used to tell me it wasn't polite to ask for candy," he said. "She said it was better to wait until it was offered to me."
She had a feeling that there was a deeper meaning to his words, and that whatever it was was going to make her feel awkward and uneasy if she pursued it, so she changed the subject.
“You do flirt with Anne," she said. "She told me so."
"Never."
She took on a scornful expression. "Not even the night ya asked her to take me in?"
Taken back, he swallowed hard and had the grace to look sheepish. "That . . . was . . . closer to begging than flirting," he said, wondering what she was going to do now that she knew she'd been tricked. "How long have you known?"
"A few weeks."
And she was still speaking to him? he thought.
"I came home from work and caught her haulin' wood in from the shed," she explained when he continued to stare at her in a stunned silence. "She musta lost track of the time, 'cuz she'd forgotten to hide all the laundry she'd toted up and down the stairs. I'd been thinkin' there was a mite less of it than there oughta be for four people."
"What'd she say?"
"Said you came knocking on her door in the middle of the night, asking her to take in a girl ya'd met in the bar that night."
"I think I asked her to take in a pretty girl I'd met in the bar," he interjected, teasing her, hoping to charm his way out of a heavy punishment.
Ellis wasn't buying it. "When she didn't cotton to the idea of takin' in a stranger that no one ever saw before, she said ya flirted with her and sweet-talked her into sayin' yes."
He could see that his best defense would have to be a good offense. "Flirted and sweet-talked her? That's what she said?" She nodded. "Well that ain't true. I begged like a dog and promised to do her share of the dishes for the rest of my life."
Laughter bubbled up and out of Ellis like soapsuds in a long-necked bottle. He was the beatin'est man! she thought, and Lord above, she loved him because of it. . . .
Sobering, she looked at him, looked at him through new eyes, as if seeing him for the first time. Did she love him?
Love was something she knew about. She knew what it was to have it and what it was to be without it. It was the best and the worst of all emotions. It was incredibly wonderful and excruciatingly painful, a blessing and a curse, something to die for and the only thing that made life worth living.
But did she love Bryce? All she knew was that if he turned his back on her and walked away, he'd take a huge part of her with him—a part of her that she had denied too long, thinking it unimportant. A piece of her that needed confirmation—her self-worth, her intelligence, her identity.
Her life had been a constant struggle against degradation and despair. Born into a state of disgrace, she'd grown up in shame. There was no one but herself to believe that her life had value, that she was good and that there was a purpose to her existence. Some days she hadn't believed it herself. Some days it hadn't mattered ...
It mattered to Bryce. His respect and consideration reaffirmed her faith in herself, echoed and strengthened her opinion of who she was. His gentleness nurtured hope and encouragement. His decency, warmth, and his own sense of significance had a grip on her spirit, heart, and mind. He had become an integral part of them.
"Ya really promised to do Anne's dishes 'cuz of me?" she asked, marveling at her emotions.
"I begged, too." A greater sacrifice, in his opinion. He kept his head pitifully bent, toyed with a near-empty beer bottle, and gave her plenty of time to feel guilt and remorse and respond with an appropriate amount of gratitude.
When she didn't respond at all, he glanced up at her. A queer sort of tenderness had taken control of her features, and a familiar glint in her eyes made his pulse jump. His muscles flexed automatically. He'd seen that glint at least seventy-five . . . maybe a hundred times since he'd grown his first moustache. A cold sweat broke out over his body. He lowered his gaze from hers, then scanned the room to see if anyone else had noticed the bold message written on her face.
"Ya ain't mad." She'd given him five acres of hell for doing less than lying to her. "How come?"
"Anne said I shouldn't be," she said simply with a shrug. She slipped the empty bottle from his hand and tossed it away, using her expression to ask if he wanted another. When he shook his head, she continued, "She said ya done her a favor, that she hadn't known how . . . ah, how . . . insecure she'd felt bein' pregnant and on the other side of the mountain without another woman 'round for miles. I give her peace of mind, she said."
She wasn't giving any to Bryce, however. She leaned casually back against the cooler door, hooked her thumbs in the pockets of her jeans, and splayed her fingers across her abdomen, unwittingly drawing specific attention to that general area of her body. His muscles knotted in chaotic excitement. He squirmed nervously on the stool and shifted his eyes back to hers—not that it helped.
'"Course, I've a notion she was just being nice," she said, unaware of the effect she was having on him. "She's a right fine person, but I told her I couldn't stay. Havin' a woman's body don't mean I eat any less, ya know. So we agreed on the chores I was to do, and then . . ." she hesitated, recalling the moment warmly, "then we had tea together at the kitchen table and talked. I never done that before."
"What? Had tea?"
"No. Set with another woman, just to talk."
He groaned. "Girl talk. I won't ask what ya talked about."
“You mostly," she offered the topic anyway, smiling slyly.
For a split second he thought he might break out in a blush. He willed himself to stay cool and smile back. "Musta been a short back and forth."
"A good hour or more is closer to it."
He cleared his throat, as apprehensive as a frog with a busted jumper on a busy road. He went hot and cold in spurts. Hellfire! Was he losing his mind? he wondered. They finally agreed on something, and he was acting like a jackass. She wanted him, he knew the look. And he wanted her. How much simpler did it have to get?
"I'd best be gettin' back," he said, wanting to kick himself.
If any other female had looked at him the way Ellis was, he'd have waited out her shift and asked her to the movies. He'd have kissed her silly in the balcony, and then jumped her bones before they made it back to her front door. What was he waiting for?
"Are ya still workin' on the cupboards in the kitchen?" she asked, knowing he spent most of his free time working on his house—free time, that is, that he didn't spend at the Steel Wheel with her.
“Yep. Should have 'em finished soon," he said, patting his body, searching for his pockets as if he'd lost them. He pulled out a five-dollar bill and laid it on the counter. "Are ya workin' later tonight?"
She took the five and made change for the single beer he'd sipped on. Not for the first time did she realize that he wasn't much of a drinker. She sighed happily.
"That a yes or a no?" he asked, watching her closely.
"What?" My oh my. What a dither she was in—and wasn't it wondrous?
"Are ya workin' late?"
"Ah . . . no. Tug don't need me," she said, recalling that she hadn't been pleased with the news. Saturday nights were money in her pocke
t, and she wished she could work them all. . . . But there was a bright side. "Maybe after supper, you could show me your cupboards."
Her Saturday night off meant he wouldn't have to make another trip to town, wouldn't have to spend the night in the bar waiting for Reuben Evans to make an appearance and hopefully a wrong move, wouldn't have to be near her in his present state of confusion. . . .
"Sure. Anytime," he said before he could think of a way to put her off. "I'll see ya later."
Ellis watched him leave.
When a girl grew up to be a woman, there were things she knew. Womanly things that needed to be heeded. Well . . . Ellis was a woman and she was paying heed to them.
Effie used to tell her that God sent every bird its food, but He didn't throw it into the nest. Well . . . Ellis knew what she wanted. She knew what she needed. And she knew how to go out and get it.
Nine
Bryce had never been the dreamer his older brother was. He didn't want to be anyone important, didn't want to be a crusader or save the world. Big cars, overblown houses and a cushy bank account had long ago fallen low on his list of priorities when compared to deer hunting on a chilly fall morning, fishing in the summertime, or lying in a field of tall grass and sucking in the clear, sweet Kentucky air while he watched the clouds push each other across a bluer than blue sky.
Anne called him earthy, he called himself smart. He was only going to get one life, and he wanted to take his time and enjoy every second of it. To his way of thinking, God wouldn't have created trees and water and sunshine if he had wanted a body to work in an office all day.
A man didn't truly own many things during his lifetime. Fewer still were the things he could say he was genuinely proud of accomplishing. But when he came to the bottom of it all, a man was a veritable king if he was lucky enough to love, be loved, and fit in somewhere.
"Ain't nothin' fancy," Bryce said, surveying the unpainted drywall and bare floors that represented a dozen smashed fingers, a bathtub full of sweat, and more loving care than he'd ever invested in an inert object before. The house was a place of his own, a place where he belonged, that belonged to him—and he was surprised at how much he wanted Ellis to like it. "It'll keep the rain and the wind out, though, and buildin' it with my own two hands’ll give me somethin' to boast about when I'm an old man."
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