She sighed and wiped ineffectively at the dirt smudges. “I’m Lovey Porter, and my father’s place is just back up the road a few minutes. Come on.” Royal nodded, briefly turning to switch off the headlights and retrieve the car key before shutting the door and allowing Lovey to steer her up the hill by the elbow.
Lovey marveled at the turn her evening had taken as they trudged slowly back to the roadway. Royal stumbled, which called Lovey back to the present moment. She put an arm around her waist. “Should we stop for a minute?”
“No, I’m fine. Just a little shaken up. It’ll pass.” Royal took in a deep breath and let it out. “I’ll be okay.”
Lovey removed her arm but kept it near Royal’s back in case she faltered again.
Chapter Three
After a few initially wobbly steps, Lovey was pleased that the walk back to the house was uneventful. Royal was probably more frightened than she was willing to admit to a total stranger. Lovey would have been surprised if she hadn’t been, given the tumble she’d just taken. The light on the porch was still lit as Lovey pulled the screen door open and motioned for Royal to enter.
“Wait here for a minute while I turn on a light inside.” Lovey moved past Royal and flipped a switch in the kitchen. The light from the adjoining room cast a soft glow over the foyer where Royal was still standing. Lovey ushered her into the kitchen.
Royal was leaning against the sink, looking around as Lovey moved closer. Standing in front of her, Lovey found herself captivated by the bluest eyes she’d ever seen. Royal’s sun-kissed skin and blond, short-cropped hair, in spots, almost bleached white, no doubt from hours in the sun, set off her eyes perfectly. Royal seemed to realize Lovey was studying her and self-consciously attempted to tuck in her unruly shirttail. The white collared shirt had marks and a few spots of blood on it now. It was loosely tucked back into tan men’s trousers, held up by suspenders. Royal’s build was slim, but not slight. Lovey thought the men’s clothes suited her slender frame well.
Somehow, knowing the stranger she’d rescued from the car was a woman, Lovey felt braver about the decision to bring her back to the house. Royal was like no one she’d ever met before. Lovey had to admit she was intrigued.
Emboldened, Lovey stepped closer still and reached to brush the hair away from Royal’s forehead to get a better look at the cut. Lovey noticed Royal flinch. She paused before actually making contact. “Is it okay if I take a look?”
They were almost the same height. Royal might have been an inch or two taller, and standing close the way they were at the moment, their eyes locked and Lovey’s heart fluttered unexpectedly. There it is again. What is that about?
Royal nodded in reply, and Lovey gently brushed the errant bit of hair away from the wound.
❖
Royal’s skin tingled from the brush of Lovey’s fingers. They were standing so close that when Royal released a soft sigh, Lovey’s bobbed, wavy hair stirred around her soft features. She’d been studying Royal with dark eyes, and the only word Royal could call forth to describe the sensation was exposed. After examining the still bleeding cut just above her eyebrow, Lovey scrunched her nose and took a step back. Lovey pushed her thick hair back from her face. Her hair was shorter than the way most of the local girls wore theirs, cropped just at her jawline, thick and full of waves. Lovey had the biggest, softest brown eyes Royal had ever seen. The sort of bottomless pools a person could get lost in. Her lips seemed to be perpetually turned up just at the corners as if she’d just heard a good joke and couldn’t wait to share it.
Her figure was slim with slight girlish curves. The dress she wore hung loosely, the waistline dropping below her hips just the way they wore them in magazines. Obviously, Lovey had landed here from some other place than the hills and hollows of Dawson County. For surely had she existed here previously, Royal most certainly would have noticed.
“Wait here. I’ll get something to clean that up and I’ll be right back. Why don’t you sit down?” Lovey motioned toward a kitchen chair as she left the room.
With Lovey no longer in her personal space, Royal slumped against the sink for a minute and exhaled. Moving slowly, she took a seat. Heels clicking on the hardwood floor signaled Lovey’s return to the kitchen. She was carrying a small box of gauze, tape, an iodine bottle, and a cloth.
Royal watched as Lovey placed the items on the table and turned toward the sink to dampen the cloth before pulling up a chair. Her movements were fluid. Royal couldn’t help but notice the pale skin of her slender arms exposed beneath the short sleeves of the blue cotton dress, and her long, tapered fingers. Lovey cupped Royal’s chin in one hand as she gently dabbed at the cut with the damp cloth in her other hand. She was so close that Royal could smell lavender on her skin. There she was again, in Royal’s space, making Royal’s ears and cheeks heat up and her heart rate increase. She was used to being the confident one in almost any situation, but clearly, Lovey was just as confident. This made Royal more than a little nervous.
Seeming satisfied that the cut was clean, Lovey reached for the iodine bottle.
“This will probably sting just a bit.” Royal nodded, and Lovey began to dab the red-brown liquid over the cut. It did sting, and Lovey tenderly blew on it after each dab. Even her breath smelled sweet, and Royal worried she was in danger of passing out, not from the injury but from the proximity of this particular caregiver.
Lovey rocked back in her chair. She’d just put a small piece of gauze over the wound and taped it in place. “How do you feel?”
“Fine.” Royal’s throat was dry and her voice cracked. “Good.”
“Water?” offered Lovey.
“Yes, please.”
“Or I may even have lemonade.”
“Even better.” Royal cleared her throat as Lovey pulled glasses from the cabinet and filled them from a pitcher near the sink. After quenching her thirst and attempting to calm her nerves, Royal shifted in her chair and looked around the house a little. She could see a glimpse of the living room from where she sat and noted that it was comfortably full of upholstered furniture, small tables, and books, lots of books.
“Do you like to read?” Royal sipped as she turned back to Lovey.
“Most of those belong to my father. He’s a minister and he uses lots of references for his sermons.” It dawned on Royal where she was. Maybe she’d taken a harder lick to the head than she’d realized, or maybe she’d just been too distracted by Lovey’s attentions to think clearly.
“Your father is Reverend Edwards?”
“You know him?” Lovey regarded Royal as she sipped lemonade.
“I know of him.” But the last names didn’t match. That’s why Royal hadn’t put the facts together. “Didn’t you say your last name was Porter?”
“Porter is my married name.”
“Oh.” Hope sank in Royal’s chest like a rock dropped into a shallow pond. Even though she’d known it was foolish to consider it, she’d hoped to get a chance to know Lovey better. That wouldn’t happen exactly as she’d envisioned if Lovey had a husband in tow.
“My husband died a year ago. I just moved here.”
Royal was immediately sorry for thinking ill of a man she didn’t even know and now she’d just heard was deceased. “My condolences for your loss.”
An awkward silence hung between them in the warmly lit kitchen. The choruses of tree frogs drifted in through the open kitchen window, and a sheer, lace trimmed curtain drifted in the breeze. After another moment, Royal stood up abruptly, the chair skidding back noisily on the wood floor.
“I should go.” She’d stood up too quickly though and regretted it as her head began to spin. Lovey was on her feet swiftly, placing a hand on each of Royal’s arms to steady her.
❖
Lovey eased Royal back down into the chair. She wasn’t quite ready for this encounter to be over, and even if she had been, Royal didn’t seem stable enough to strike out without some assistance.
“Why don’t we
call someone to come get you? My father has a telephone.”
“That’d be a great idea, but there’d be no phone to ring on the other end.”
“Oh.” Lovey considered other options for a moment. “I’d offer to drive you, but Father has the car and I don’t know when he’ll be back.”
“I can walk. It’s only a couple of miles to town.” Royal attempted to stand again, but quickly sat back down. “Sorry. My head is swimming a little.”
“Won’t someone notice if you’re not home and come looking for you?” Lovey knew that if she’d failed to return home when expected her father would have the entire congregation scouring the tri-county region until they found her.
“No, they’ll just assume I stayed in town. I have a rented room there, and if I’m out late, um, working, then sometimes I stay there.”
Lovey wondered briefly what work would keep Royal out this late, but she filed that question away for later.
“You were just in a bad accident. I don’t think you’re in any shape to walk.” Lovey didn’t really want to let Royal out of her sight. Not while she seemed this shaken up from the wreck. She placed her hand over Royal’s resting on the table and caressed it unconsciously. Only when she saw Royal looking down to where her hand covered Royal’s did she pull hers away. But in that instant of contact she’d made her decision. “I think you should stay here tonight and I’ll drive you home tomorrow.”
“What?” Royal regarded Lovey with surprise. “I don’t think—”
“I won’t let you leave in this condition by yourself, and there’s no other way to get you home at the moment. We have a spare room and it’s yours for the night.” Lovey watched a series of emotions play out across Royal’s striking features and wished at that moment she had the ability to read minds. “It’s already quite late. I really do think this is the most prudent solution.”
“Are you sure the reverend, I mean, your father, won’t mind?”
“Well, he’s not here to ask, is he? And there’s nothing of higher value than Christian charity for those in need, is there?” Although, even while trying to convince herself charity was at the root of the invitation, Lovey knew that wasn’t the entire truth. She felt something for Royal that she couldn’t yet name. The air seemed to vibrate between them, and she hadn’t felt this alive in months. She’d been sequestering herself in the house for weeks after making the trip from Chicago. Tonight was the first night in forever that gave her any feeling that there might be a life out there in the world she’d want to experience. Lovey had no idea how or why meeting Royal had flipped some switch on inside her mournful existence, but she wanted to find out.
Lovey extended her hand to Royal. “I think you should lie down. It’s a short walk to the spare room.” Once they arrived, Royal sat on the side of the bed and Lovey offered to help remove her shoes. She worried that if Royal attempted to bend over to loosen what remained of the laces in her boots she might topple headfirst to the floor.
After Royal’s shoes were off and stowed near the door, Lovey sat beside Royal on the bed. They were turned so that they partially faced each other, and Lovey began to unbutton Royal’s soiled shirt as if it were the most normal thing in the world to do. Royal didn’t seem to mind the attention, and after all, they were both women, so what did it matter if she saw Royal in a state of undress down to her undershirt and trousers? After unbuttoning the shirt, she slid her hands under the suspenders and slipped them from Royal’s thin, broad shoulders. The gesture felt intimate in a way she hadn’t intended. Lovey’s heart began to pound in her chest, and she looked up to see Royal regard her curiously.
“Why were you walking alone on the road this late at night?” Royal’s voice was soft and the question seemed to hold no judgment, only genuine curiosity.
Lovey was quiet for a moment as she fingered the placket of Royal’s open shirt. “Do you ever feel like spaces are closing in on you?”
Royal was silent, so Lovey continued. It had been so long since someone had asked her anything truly personal. She was sick and tired of condolences and folks tiptoeing around her sadness. Death scared people. And there was nothing anyone could say that helped ease the hurt anyway.
“I needed to be out in the night.” Lovey allowed her gaze to focus on a loose button at the front of Royal’s shirt. “Somehow, the darkness comforts me, maybe because I can’t see the edge of it. And the infinite curve of the stars, while it does make me feel small, it also makes me feel like I’m part of something so much larger. Something so large that it’s untouched by my earthly concerns.”
Lovey watched Royal slip her arms free of her smudged shirt, her tanned shoulders extended past the tank cut T-shirt that remained.
“I’m sorry. You’ve just been in an accident and I’m rambling.” Lovey took the shirt from Royal and stood to hang it over a nearby chair. They had not lit the lamp in the bedroom, but indirect light spilled through the open door from the kitchen just down the hall.
“You’re not rambling. I asked.”
“You should rest.” Lovey lifted a folded quilt from the foot of the bed as Royal lay back on the pillow. Lovey pulled the handmade covering up over her still trouser clad legs to her waist. “Do you need anything else?”
“No, you’ve been extremely kind given I nearly ran you over.”
“But you didn’t. You sacrificed yourself instead.” Lovey tucked the covers around Royal. “And for that I’m very grateful.”
She lingered in the open door before pulling it softly closed behind her. “Good night, Royal.”
“Good night, Lovey.”
Chapter Four
Royal thought there’d be no way she’d fall asleep knowing Lovey was just down the hall, but she did. The pink hue of the approaching sunrise was just peeking through the window of the spare room when Royal roused. For a moment, she couldn’t remember where she was. She was lying under a quilt pattern she didn’t recognize, still partially dressed. She sat up and then her pounding head sent her a quick reminder. The wreck. She’d left her car upside down at the base of a large tree, and she’d spent the night in Reverend Abraham Edwards’s house. The only person in the tri-county area who professed to abhor moonshine more than the local revenuers was Reverend Edwards, and she was about to meet him at the breakfast table if she didn’t pull herself together and make a quick escape.
Royal paused for a moment as she was pulling on her boots, having to stabilize herself against the footboard. She took a long, slow breath, retrieved her shirt from a nearby chair, and pulled it on. Looking back at the bed, she decided to fold the quilt before climbing out the window. Lovey would no doubt wonder why she’d snuck off so early, but Royal felt confident she’d be glad at the same time. The last guest Lovey needed at the kitchen table was a known moonshine runner. She tried to be as silent as possible in the dim early morning light as she slid the window open and dropped between some rather stiff shrubberies.
She cursed in hushed whispers as she pulled stiff twigs from under her shirttail and extricated herself from the bushes. A light came on in a window several feet away from where she stood, which inspired Royal to make quick steps away from the house toward the road.
The two-mile walk into town did little to quiet her mind. Over and over, she ran the details through her head trying to figure out if Lovey had been flirting with her or just being nice, or maybe a little of both. If luck was on her side she’d find Frank before deliveries and catch a ride to her house, then later Ned could help her retrieve the car.
Frank was toting a large sack of feed out to a buckboard just as she walked up. Luck was on her side after all.
“Good Lord, Royal. Looks like you had a rough night.” Frank leaned on the feed sack he’d just deposited in the back of the horse-drawn wagon.
Her shirt was soiled, there was a bandage over her eye, and one boot clomped as she walked due to its shortened lace. “Actually, it coulda been worse.”
“Well, this is a story I’ve gotta hear.”
“Can you give me a lift home?” Royal was beat and didn’t feel like walking another mile to her mother’s place.
“Sure, take a seat. I’ve got one more thing to load and then we can be on our way.”
Royal nodded and gratefully climbed up onto the wooden bench seat at the front of the wagon and waited for Frank to return.
❖
Lovey woke with a start, remembering that she’d invited Royal to stay over in the spare room. She pulled on a robe and padded down the hallway in her bare feet. She peeked into the guest room. Empty. She took note of the folded quilt at the foot of the bed.
“Would you like some coffee?” her father called to her from the kitchen.
Her heart rate increased for a moment at the thought of Royal and her father having coffee together. She was oddly relieved when she entered the kitchen and saw him seated by himself reading his Bible.
“I’ll get it, thank you.” Lovey poured herself a cup and stood leaning against the counter. “You’re studying already?”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
“Really?”
“I thought I heard someone outside the house, in the bushes this morning. Once I woke up I couldn’t get back to sleep so I figured I might as well get started on this week’s sermon.”
Surely Royal didn’t climb out the window? But maybe she had. The image of Royal sneaking out the window like an illicit lover and almost getting caught by her father amused her.
“What are you smiling about?” Lovey’s father regarded her with a curious expression.
“Oh, nothing. Why don’t I make us some breakfast?”
“You’re hungry?” Her father closed the black leather cover of the enormous Bible in front of him and slouched back in his chair. He removed the wire-rimmed spectacles from his prominent nose, giving her his full attention. She thought her father had aged quite a bit since she’d been away in Chicago. He was always a slender, bookish man, but somehow he seemed thinner, maybe even stooped a little at the shoulders. His thinning gray hair was a bit unkempt first thing in the morning.
Whiskey Sunrise Page 2