“How have you been?” she asked as she walked to the nearby log and picked up her shirtwaist. Her hands trembled something awful as she slipped her arms into the sleeves. Was he not even gentleman enough to give her his back while she dressed? She wondered a moment if perhaps he still viewed her as a child—for as children, it was often they’d each stripped down to their undergarments to wade through the creek.
“Fine. Just fine,” he answered. “I see you haven’t changed much.”
Violet swallowed, finished buttoning her shirtwaist, and said, “I suppose not.” She snatched up her petticoat, stepping into it and fastening it at the back of her waist.
“You ran headlong into me in town this mornin’,” he said. “Looked me right in the eye and didn’t say a word of greetin’.” He left his position of leaning against the tree and started toward her.
Violet startled slightly at his advance and quickly stepped into her walking skirt. “Oh, I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t recognize you,” Violet lied.
“I see you still can’t lie worth a hill of beans,” he said.
“And you still can’t resist making the little girls blush,” she countered, nodding in the direction that Susan and Nina had gone.
He smiled a little—enough for his charming dimples to begin dimpling but not enough to reveal them fully. Violet was far too aware of his nearness. It was almost as if he emanated some sort of alluring heat, for she fancied she was slightly perspiring.
“I came to ask a favor of ya, schoolteacher,” he said.
Violet frowned. Was this to be it—an exchange of casual pleasantries and nothing else? For the first time, the reality of life washed over Violet like a bitter, cold cloudburst. Ten years had passed. There was no going back to a friendship that had caused so much pain to two children almost a decade before. Stoney Wrenn was a man, and whether or not Violet’s heart still loved the boy he had once been, men were not held captive by sentimentality the way women were. The boy Stoney Wrenn was gone. In his place was an intimidating man who displayed no joy in an old friend’s return—showed no regret at having lost her in the first place.
“A favor?” she asked, sitting down on the log and pulling on one stocking. What kind of a favor would he ask of her? Oh, her soul knew well enough that she owed him a favor—owed him a million favors for having abandoned him. Though she remained calm in appearance, inwardly she cried out—begged him to ask anything of her. She would grant him any favor, any recompense she could offer for having left him.
“I want ya to teach my boy to read,” he said.
Violet paused in pulling on her second stocking. She near gulped with astonishment. She felt as if someone had plunged a knife into her bosom. Emotions she could neither explain nor manage whirled within her. “Y-you have a son?” she asked.
“Oh, hell no!” he growled. “Jimmy ain’t my son. I found him.”
Violet looked to him. She felt like screaming! Didn’t he care that she’d come back for him? Didn’t he care that she’d been told he was a philanderer? Didn’t he cherish anything they’d shared in the past? How could he stand before her, calmly conversing—watching her get dressed, for pity’s sake—as if they’d never meant anything to one another?
“You found him?” she managed to ask. “Wh-who?”
“Jimmy Ritter,” he stated, frowning as if he couldn’t fathom why she didn’t understand him. “I found him in a cave, and I want ya to teach him to read. I’ll pay ya for yer time.”
“Jimmy Ritter? The young man I met this morning?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “He tells me he carried yer books to the schoolhouse for ya. Ain’t that sweet?”
“You found him?” Even for all her emotions, Violet almost laughed—surprised by Stoney’s matter-of-factness—as if it were the most normal thing in the world to find a boy.
Stoney nodded. “Sure. He run away from the orphan home in Valencia. I found him holed up in a cave right after Bud died.” Stoney shrugged. “I had a lot that needed doin’ on the place, so I hired him as my hand. That was two years back, and I figure he’s about ready to move on. I can sense the itch in him.”
Violet smiled as Stoney reached down and plucked a blade of foxtail grass. Breaking off the spiky foxtail tip, he flicked it away and took the remaining stalk between his teeth. Stoney Wrenn had always chewed on foxtail grass—at least, as a child he had.
“I figure he ought to learn to read before he leaves. A person needs readin’. I tried to teach him myself, but we butt heads over it. He wouldn’t have anything to do with the last two schoolteachers we had.” He smiled at her then, the blade of foxtail grass still between his teeth. His dimpled smile nearly melted Violet into a puddle at his feet. Certainly dimples were always adorable on a child, and Stoney Wrenn had been no exception. However, the long, deep dimple that adorned his face as a man—well, Violet thought there could be no more attractive embellishment to such an already magnificent face. Furthermore, that same smile—the one from her memory, the one from her dreams—it caused her heart to suddenly leap within her bosom.
“I don’t figure he’ll butt heads with you though.” He winked, and Violet was breathless with sudden delight. He leaned forward, lowering his voice. “I think he’s kinda sweet on ya already.”
Violet was somewhat mortified when she felt the heat of a blush rising to her cheeks. Even she was not immune to his attractive, flattering ways. “Of course I’ll teach him to read,” Violet said, reaching down to slip lace one boot. “He seems like a very nice boy. Just have him come to the school and—”
“He won’t come to the school,” he interrupted. “You’d have to meet with him another time. That’s why I’m offerin’ to pay you.”
“Why?” she asked. “Surely it’s not his age. The Fisher boy and the Webster boy are older, and they don’t seem to mind.”
“No, they don’t,” Stoney said. “But that’s ’cause they’d rather be in school than workin’ hard. Jimmy’s not that way at all. He sees daylight as somethin’ that shouldn’t be wasted. He doesn’t understand how important readin’ and writin’ are.”
“I see,” Violet said, lacing her other boot. “Well, would we have to wait until dark? Or do you think he’d be willin’ to meet me just before suppertime maybe?”
“Oh, he’ll meet ya whenever I tell him to meet ya,” Stoney said. “I just didn’t want to bully him too much. He’s gettin’ older; he’s nearly his own man. He don’t need me naggin’ like I was his mama.”
Violet couldn’t help but smile. How handsome Stoney had grown up to be! Furthermore, his concern over Jimmy’s future was admirable. Womanizing son of a gun or not, Stoney Wrenn was doing right by Jimmy Ritter.
“Then send him to my house at about five o’clock today,” Violet said. “We’ll start this evening.”
“All righty then,” Stoney said. “Do you want me to pay ya after every lesson? Or just at the end of every week?”
Violet felt her smile fade. “You don’t need to pay me,” she said. “He’s a member of this town…and thereby my pupil. The school board pays me. I wouldn’t accept a wage even if they didn’t.”
“He’s a handful,” he said. “He can talk the feathers off a magpie. Are ya sure ya don’t want—”
“No,” Violet interrupted. “Just send him to me. I’m more than happy to teach him.”
“All right then, Miss Fynne,” Stoney said. “Just remember that I warned ya—that boy’ll near talk yer ear off.”
Violet nodded. She made the mistake of letting her gaze linger on Stoney’s face for a moment. All at once she was nearly overcome with the desire to throw her arms around his neck and tell him she was sorry—sorry for abandoning him so many years before. Still, she sensed he wouldn’t care, that he’d left the past far behind, even though Violet had never been able to.
“I’ll be fine,” she said, still unable to quit staring at him. “And I better get home…if I’m going to have Jimmy’s first lesson prepared for him befor
e he arrives.”
“Why did ya come back?” he asked unexpectedly.
Violet felt her cheeks burn with a renewed blush. She felt uncomfortable, overly warm. She certainly couldn’t tell him the truth—that she’d come back for him. He’d think she was insane—surely he would!
“I-I always missed Rattler Rock,” she began, “ever since Daddy moved us away. So when I was informed there was a teaching position open here—the one my own father occupied years ago, now that I think about it—I chose to come back.”
Stoney Wrenn’s green-blue eyes narrowed. He studied her for a moment, seemed to consider her answer, as if he didn’t quite believe it to be the truth. “That’s good,” he said at last, “’cause I sure hope ya didn’t come back to check up on me.”
Violet gulped—tried to appear unaffected. “Of course not,” she lied. “You’re fine. It’s obvious you’ve made quite a success of life.”
“I am fine,” he said. “Oh, folks may say that I’m a—what was it that little Deavers girl said? A womanizing son of a—”
“Gun,” Violet interrupted.
“Oh yeah,” he chuckled. “I’m sure that was it.” He chuckled again, and Violet smiled—delighted by the way his opaline eyes and dimples complemented his already wildly good looking face. “But no matter what the folks in town think, I’ve done all right for myself. I guess I’m about as content as a man can be.”
“Well…I’m…I’m very glad to know that,” Violet said. She lowered her gaze for a moment—still haunted by the past, still needing further affirmation Stoney Wrenn had been all right after she’d abandoned him. “I admit, I worried for you. I worried that your father—”
“Oh, he eased up on me pretty soon after yer family left town,” he said. “It was like somethin’ just knocked some sense into him one day. And he didn’t lay a hand on me again.”
“Oh, good!” Violet breathed. She felt as if something had been resting on her shoulders and was suddenly lifted—slightly. “I’m glad to hear…to see you so happy.”
His eyes narrowed as he looked at her and nodded. “And you don’t seem to have suffered none for livin’ in the big city,” he said.
“I don’t?” she asked.
“Well, yer still wadin’ through cricks in yer underwear, savin’ children from gettin’ a lickin’, and huntin’ treasure.”
Again Violet felt cheeks pink up. She couldn’t believe he’d caught her in such a situation—in such a manner of undress! “Susan Gribbs took her mother’s brooch without asking then dropped it in the creek when she was showing it to her friend,” she explained.
Stoney nodded. “I’m thinkin’ that would’ve been quite a lickin’ then. Ol’ Ethel Gribbs ain’t as tenderhearted as she once was.”
“She’s not?”
Stoney shook his head. “Nope. But I guess that’s the way with most of us. Ain’t it?”
There was a deeper meaning to his words. Was it his way of letting her know he was no longer the kind, mischievous boy she’d once known?
“I don’t know,” she said.
He grinned, as if knowing her soul was confused and in torment. “I’ll send Jimmy over this evenin’,” he said. “You have a good afternoon, Miss Fynne.”
“Thank you,” she said as he tugged at the brim of his hat and turned to leave.
He paused. Turning back to her once more, he said, “Let’s keep this little…situation here between just us two. All right? I don’t need nobody thinkin’ I had my way with the new schoolteacher or somethin’. Apparently folks already name me as a womanizin’ son of a…gun. I don’t want certain folks wonderin’ if it’s true. And you sure don’t need folks wonderin’ if yer a—”
“You mean you don’t want Miss Asbury wondering if it’s true,” Violet said. She was angry! She didn’t even know why, but she was. In fact, the fury that had suddenly risen in her bosom was entirely unfamiliar.
“That’s right.” His eyes narrowed. “And I don’t want the sheriff on my heels neither.”
“The sheriff?”
He grinned. “Oh, he’s already staked his claim to you, Miss Fynne. And don’t nobody buck Coby Fisher once he’s got his mind set.”
“But I don’t—”
“You have a good afternoon,” he interrupted, turning from her and striding away. “Hope Jimmy don’t talk yer head clean off yer shoulders.”
“Goodbye,” Violet said.
She watched him go—watched him until he disappeared over the hill leading to the road. My, he was handsome. And so tall! The boy she’d played with as a child was gone. In his place was a man—a man who walked a path without the need of an old friend for company.
Sighing and awash with a sort of discouraged melancholy, Violet ambled along the creekbank toward town. Was this it? After ten years of worrying and guilt—after a decade of thinking of little else but returning to Rattler Rock in search of Stoney Wrenn—was this all there was meant to be? What had she expected? Had she expected Stoney would be so overjoyed to see her again that he’d take her hand and pull her off in search of a dead carcass to investigate or an old tree to climb? Those years were gone; those children were gone. Yet, admittedly, she had expected more than a simple, “Why did ya come back?” and “I want you to teach my boy to read.” Surely their childhood friendship had meant more to Stoney Wrenn than that—hadn’t it?
As Violet followed the creek back toward town, she wondered if it hadn’t. Maybe Stoney had simply not valued Violet to the depths she had valued him. It wasn’t fair! Violet was hurt—angry in thinking Stoney had swept memories of their friendship aside.
Yet perhaps—perhaps when his father had ceased in beating him, he’d moved on to a happier life, let go of everything that may have reminded him of more difficult times. How could she feel badly about his having done so? Still, her heart ached—ached differently when she thought of Stoney now. At least, bearing the burden of guilt and worry that she’d borne for nearly ten years—at least in that she still felt she owned a part of him somehow, held to a tether that could never strip him from her mind and heart. Now, however, her mind was muddled and her heart aching, for Stoney Wrenn had grown into a fine measure of a man, a man Violet suspected could have just as powerful a hold on her soul as the boy Stoney Wrenn had owned—more powerful in fact.
There would come no good of letting her mind linger on such thoughts. Violet straightened as her little house came into view. She had a new pupil. Jimmy Ritter would arrive in less than two hours. She must prepare. She had to bake a cake.
Smiling, Violet whispered, “Yes. A cake should do for Jimmy.” If there was one thing Violet Fynne had learned as a teacher, it was the benefits of making certain that learning to read and write made a child feel happy. If she baked a cake—allowed Jimmy to enjoy the delicious sensation a human being experienced while eating such a sweet thing—then he would begin to associate reading and writing with delight and, therefore, delight in reading and writing.
She determined then to push thoughts of Stoney Wrenn from her mind to settle her heart. She would think of Jimmy Ritter—of the kind young man who indeed should learn to read and write before he set out full into life.
A vision of Stoney Wrenn endeavored to linger in her mind—tall, handsome, dimple-cheeked. Violet shook her head as she climbed the steps of the front porch of her little schoolteacher’s house.
“A cake for Jimmy. It should do fine,” she whispered.
❦
“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble, Miss Fynne,” Jimmy said as he sat on the front porch step devouring a piece of cake.
Violet smiled and rested one elbow on one knee, her chin in her hand. “It wasn’t any trouble at all, Jimmy,” she said. “I love cake. But can you imagine if I were to make a cake and have no one to share it with?”
“You’d more’n likely get a bellyache,” Jimmy said.
“More than likely, yes,” Violet giggled. She’d been thinking she’d grow as big as a bloated dead cow, but
she thought Jimmy’s response much kinder.
“Ya know,” Jimmy began, “maybe readin’ ain’t gonna be as hard to learn as I’ve been thinkin’ all this time.”
Violet smiled as Jimmy shoveled another bite of cake into his mouth. “Well, I hope not,” she said. “Reading is so important, Jimmy…and so wonderful. Oh, the adventures I’ve known through reading!”
“Mmm-hmm. Stoney says ya always had yer nose stuck in a book when the two of you were kids.” He ate another bite of cake. “He says ya near scared yerself to death after readin’ some book by a feller named Charlie. Somethin’ about ghosts and Christmas.”
Violet laughed and covered her mouth with one hand when she realized how loud she had laughed. What a delicious memory! “I don’t suppose Stoney told you that he was frightened near out of his wits too, did he?” she asked.
“What do ya mean?”
“Stoney and I read that book together,” Violet began, “a book titled A Christmas Carol by a man named Charles Dickens. We’d sit out there by the old house—the haunted one that Buddy Chisolm owned—”
“The ol’ Chisolm place?” Jimmy asked.
Violet nodded. “Every evening for near to a week, we sat out there taking turns at reading A Christmas Carol out loud to each other.” Violet smiled. “Oh, we thought we were a couple of brave souls, reading all about ghosts, waiting for the light of the lovers’ moon to appear in the windows of the old house. But when we’d finished the book, we found ourselves anticipating that spirits would appear to us in our rooms at night. I slept with my lamp lit for near to a month.” She paused—felt her eyes narrow as her mind lingered in the past. “Stoney didn’t have that. He couldn’t leave his lamp lit.” Pulling her mind from the dismal memory of Stoney’s cruel father, she forced a smile, looked at Jimmy, and said, “I guess he didn’t tell you that he was so scared he slept under his bed for quite some time after we’d finished the book.”
Jimmy chuckled, shook his head, and set his empty plate and fork down on the step. “No, ma’am, he did not,” he chuckled. “I think I’d like to read that book, Miss Fynne,” he said, smiling at her. “I think someday I’d like to read it.”
The Light of the Lovers' Moon Page 7