Hearts

by Stef Ann Holm

  While regarding him, she didn’t disguise her blatant annoyance. For a woman who suffered in high-heeled shoes for the sake of fashion, she didn’t hold back her rebellious feelings for the sake of Victorian decorum. And he hadn’t even confessed anything yet.

  “She won’t speak to me.” Truvy’s burst of words filled the small space, and he figured out that he wasn’t the only one giving her thunder some roar. “Everything went wrong. She said her Hildegarde would never have been so careless. I’ve done nothing to give that woman the impression I’m ungrateful or insensitive. I wore the dress even though I nearly died of shame.”

  Tears glittered in her eyes, but she forced them away before Jake could offer comfort. “Because of the disastrous way my evening has gone so far, I convinced myself you wouldn’t be at the restaurant and I’d have to sit there alone. Then all my expectations of integrity would be doused.”

  Ah, hell. Why did she have to go and say that? He felt like the lowest of all louses.

  “Our having dinner . . . your asking me to go with you . . .” Her voice dropped in volume as if she were having a hard time expressing her feelings. “Well . . . this is the only saving grace of my day.”

  Then she looked at him, her eyes welling with moisture again. Desolation came to mind when he gazed at her. Jake’s throat ached and he couldn’t get out the words he needed to. “Ah, what else happened with Mrs. Plunkett?”

  “I told you—she won’t speak to me.” Truvy’s arm rose and she touched the corner of her eye with a fingertip so no tear would roll down her cheek. A part of him wanted to enfold her in his arms and tell her that the old baggage was a pain in the ass and she shouldn’t take any crap from her. But what was he doing? Making that bet had been cheap on his part—and held its own kind of crap. “That is,” Truvy went on, with a soft sniff and a rub on the underside of her nose, “she did speak to me before she wasn’t speaking to me, and that was to tell me I showed a lack of consideration for her generosity.”

  “I think—”

  She groaned. “It doesn’t matter what you think. What’s done is done and . . . oh . . . I don’t know. I probably shouldn’t have left her alone with Mr. Plunkett after she took to her bed with a headache—her worst one since the day her Hildegarde walked down the aisle and married that man. I feel badly I didn’t stay with her.” A soft frown caught the smoothness of her forehead. Just at the spot where the netting of her hat rested.

  Conflict tore through Jake’s chest. “I could take you back.”

  “No, I’m not feeling that bad.” She pushed herself taller, determination crossing her face. “Talking about what happened makes me feel justified in my actions. I apologized. It’s not my fault if she doesn’t want to accept it. She judged me unfairly. Now that I’m out of the house, I’m actually looking forward to ordering a hot supper and having a slice of apple pie to end my evening on a sweet note.” Her eyes rested on his. “Why can’t we go to the restaurant?”

  He couldn’t tell her the truth, even with the liberal dose of guilt eating at his conscience. At least he couldn’t tell her right now. Not like this. Not after what she’d been through. “Kitchen fire. It’s closed.”

  The straightness to her shoulders slumped. “Oh . . . no.”

  “We can go someplace else,” he countered, hoping she wouldn’t tell him to take her home after all.

  “Where?”

  “The ice cream parlor.” But he knew damn well they couldn’t go there. “But I think it’s closed. The icebox is . . . out of ice.”

  “Oh.”

  “There isn’t much in a small town. Nannie’s is the only restaurant.”

  She grew very quiet. Very disappointed from the way her chin fell lower as the seconds ticked off. “Then I should go home—”

  “There’s the Blue Flame Saloon,” Jake said. “If you take away the beer, scotch, and all the other liquor and the naked-lady pictures and the clientele at the bar, it’s not offensive to ladies.”

  Demurely, she replied, “I don’t think so.”

  “Yeah.” Jake let out a breath of air. “I figured.”

  The night seemed to close in around them. The distant sound of sleigh bells carried in the brisk air, followed by the nicker of horses.

  “I’m going home,” Truvy said resignedly, moving past him.

  “Dutch’s Poolroom,” Jake blurted out; it was his last suggestion.

  Truvy stopped and turned to face him. “A poolroom?”

  “Sure. Dutch’s is closed tonight to decorate the joint for New Year’s Eve tomorrow. I saw Dutch in there on my way to your place.” Jake spoke matter-of-factly. “You know, if Dutch Vermeer was a woman, he’d be an acceptable chaperone.”

  “Really?” Truvy’s sarcasm dripped from each letter, elongating the word enough to make Jake smile in the face of adversity.

  “He’s sixty-three, never been married, and he doesn’t curse or spit. He keeps a bar stocked—not with liquor. Never touches it. All he serves is soda water and sarsaparilla. And he’s always got stuff to make sandwiches.” Jake was talking fast, trying to entice her by building the place up. And now that he thought about it, there really wasn’t a problem with Dutch’s. It was true—Dutch was putting up streamers, paper balloons, and the whole shebang. The door had been ajar when Jake passed by. “So what do you think?”

  Truvy didn’t say anything for a while. “The reason I’m on a leave of absence is because the benefactress of my school found me reading material that was educational, not meant to be provocative. Even Miss Pond sided with her. I felt utterly unworthy of my position when she was finished speaking to me. And yet, I held my chin up and vowed to return.”

  He knew that already. So what was she getting at? He hesitated, not commenting, figuring she thought aloud—rationalizing something or other.

  “On my arrival to this town, I was spotted with your bottle of beer and then mistaken for having been drinking it myself. On a public street, no less. Although I cleared that matter up, I’ve gotten myself into another predicament, this time with Mrs. Plunkett, who will be less, if at all, forgiving.” She sighed forlornly. “She doesn’t even know I accidentally disrobed the wise man in her front yard. I never told her, although I meant to. The police have an open report on the incident but no suspect. I might as well turn myself in. I seem to cause people to form opinions of me from my actions, not my intentions. In the most innocent incidents, I’m highly misunderstood. So why do I bother to try to keep a flawless reputation?”

  He waited for her to say something further. She didn’t.

  Because she didn’t give him a definitive answer about going to the billiard parlor, he tossed out, “Dutch has entertainment, too. A player piano. I heard music coming from the upright. Dutch could probably use some help tacking stuff to the walls in exchange for a roast beef sand—”

  “Do you think he has roast beef?”

  “He almost always does. Pickles and peanuts, without a doubt.”

  “All right.”

  “All right?”

  “All right, I’ll go to this poolroom with you.” She wagged a prim finger at him and added in warning, “But I will say this: it had better be closed and you had better not be embellishing about the man who operates it. If I find he looks like a rowdy sort and there’s liquor in there, I’m leaving.”

  “I swear it’ll be like I said.”

  And it was when they arrived.

  Dutch Vermeer ran a first-rate operation. The poolroom was spacious, the walls covered with dark wallpaper, revolving cue racks, time clocks, and slate scoreboards. Dutch had five Brunswick tables: beautiful quarter-sawn oak with a hand-rubbed satin finish, iron pockets with nickel plates. The rail-top tables were massive beasts—boat-framed with turned legs and crocheted baskets dangling red fringe. Above each one, four-arm gaslights with Italian glass shades hung just low enough not to leave a single shadow on the table.

  A short bar occupied space along the back wall. That’s where Dutch served seltzer
—no booze, being as Dutch was reformed. He might not have had Old Walker, but he always had something to eat. Meats, dilled cukes, crusty bread, peanuts, pickled eggs, olives. Real man fare.

  As Jake let Truvy step inside ahead of him, Dutch looked up from the bar where he wove tinsel garlands through a wire-back billiard chair.

  “Hello, Bruiser,” Dutch said.

  “Hey, Dutch.” Jake laid a hand on the small of Truvy’s back and guided her toward Dutch. “Dutch, this is a friend of mine—Miss Valentine.”

  Sporting a full beard and mustache and a thick head of red hair, Dutch came across larger than his body frame. He held out his hand to Truvy and she reluctantly accepted it, as if she’d never shaken a man’s hand before. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Valentine.”

  “Thank you.” The smile on her lips was one of approval. Dutch passed muster. “Likewise.” Her arm went back to her side and she gazed about the room with wide eyes.

  “Got a proposition for you, Dutch,” Jake said, nudging the brim of his bowler back with the pad of his thumb. “What do you say to me and Miss Valentine helping you out in exchange for a bite to eat?”

  Dutch waved off his offer. “Help yourself to anything you want. I don’t have much left to do except inflate some paper balloons. Got a new kind. You ignite the attachment and they blow up without alcohol. I never heard of such a thing.”

  Nodding, Jake took Truvy’s cape off her shoulders. “If you want me to ignite some, I can.”

  “You two enjoy a sandwich,” Dutch returned with a broad smile aimed at Truvy. “It’s not every day—in fact, it’s been never—that Bruiser’s brought a pretty lady to visit.”

  Truvy blushed.

  Dutch continued on, “I’ve got corned beef in the icebox. Just don’t eat at the bar, because I haven’t buffed the wax yet.” He went behind the length of rosewood with its murky surface and brought out green wool yardage. “I tell you what”—he snapped the billiard cloth open—“lay this down on one of the tables and have yourselves a picnic.”

  “Will do.” Jake took the length of green and selected the pool table closest to the slightly ajar entry door. There were no windows in Dutch’s on account of his theory that if a man had to keep track of the time by where the sun was in the sky, he wouldn’t be able to concentrate on his game.

  “Are you sure we should?” Truvy whispered, standing next to Jake and alternately glancing at the plane of green table before her. Its edges hip high, the Brunswick was enormous and grand.

  “Sure.” Jake laid her cape aside, slipped out of his coat, then fanned the cloth and let it fall without a wrinkle. “I’ll help you up.”

  She flashed him a lift of her brows. “I could climb up.”

  “Not in that dress.”

  She wore the same curve-hugging dress she had on the day Edwina had had her baby and he’d held Truvy in the Wolcotts’ kitchen. The dress was a soft green woven out of an even softer-looking wool. When he placed his hands under her arms to boost her onto the table, he reacquainted himself with just how soft, how feminine she felt. The contact shot through his body with a lightning heat that held him in its grip. The round edges of her breasts were inches from his thumbs. He could splay his fingers and catch the tips, feel the shape of her nipples beneath his touch.

  He didn’t. Not with Dutch in the room. And not with Truvy’s words about integrity still swimming in his head.

  Truvy let out a low gasp as he effortlessly propped her behind onto the rail of the pool table. The gaslights hissed overhead, casting her in a buttery haze. While he looked into her oval face, he felt a knot of emotions. The one at the forefront of his mind: caution. He hoped he hadn’t made a mistake bringing her here. No woman had ever studied him like this. With open curiosity, unbending attention, and God help him, pure trust.

  Slowly, he withdrew his hands and backed away. “Sit tight. I’ll make the sandwiches.”

  “You will?”

  “I told you I could cook,” he called over his shoulder.

  “Slicing corned beef isn’t cooking. Even I can do that.”

  “But you don’t like doing it. I do.”

  Jake went to the bar, took out what he needed from the icebox and bar shelf, and fixed a plate they could share. Dutch moved a crate from the top of the piano and set it on the floor. The inside was filled with varnished animal masks, comic paper noses and strap-on beards, fool’s caps, and costume bells. All trappings for one hell of a New Year’s Eve party.

  “Tomorrow night’s going to be a humdinger,” Dutch said, fumbling for another piano roll from the upright’s bench. “You ought to come on by if you’re not stepping out with your lady,” he added with a wink. “You want to hear anything special, Bruiser?” He held up several curled papers with tabbed holes in them. “I got ‘Dixie Flyer,’ ‘The Ragtime Dance,’ ‘Rubber Neck Jim,’ and ‘Salina Sassafras.’ ”

  “Never can pass up ‘Dixie,’ ” Jake replied.

  “You got it.” Dutch fit the paper roll on the piano’s drum cylinder, then shut the case. The ebony and ivory keys plunked out the notes of the song.

  Jake brought the plate to Truvy, hopped up onto the pool table, and sat down Indian style. She sat more demurely, legs pressed together, both out at her side with barely the tips of her shoes in view. The quills on her hat wavered as she leaned forward and took in what he offered. “Mmm. Looks good.”

  She removed her gloves and set them aside. Her fingers were slender and pale, the nails neatly filed. Knowing her academic background, he found that imagining the woman before him on a playing court was hard to do. She appeared too graceful, too ethereal, to be anything other than a proper lady.

  He had a desire to see the gaslight shining off her hair.

  “Take your hat off, Truvy.”

  “All right.” She reached up and withdrew the long hat pin, then slipped the hat from her head. The strands of her hair shimmered in hues of browns and with some red. He knew from experience that day she’d been ice skating with her hair down that the texture was superfine. The curls were put up in neat twists around her crown, some dangling at her neck. He hadn’t seen her wear her hair like this since she’d arrived in town and he’d been sent to get her.

  Likewise, he removed his bowler and angled it beside her fancy hat. He couldn’t explain why, but the pair of hats looked right together. Kind of like what it would be with a husband and his wife’s slippers on the floor at the foot of their bed.

  That the notion had occurred to him perplexed him. He’d never once thought about Laurette’s slippers beside his. Could be because neither had owned a pair. But even if they had, Laurette Everleigh wasn’t the kind of woman to find a quiet bliss in something like one pair of slippers beside another.

  “Dig in,” Jake said, sliding the plate toward Truvy. “Pick out whatever you like.”

  Selectively, she chose a wedge of bread with a pintsize stack of corned beef inside. He’d purposefully made the sandwiches on the skimpy side. He was no goon when it came to knowing a lady’s needs—both in and out of the bedroom. He had the manners to keep the portions lean but plentiful enough. Ladies liked small things. They favored tiny china cups with even tinier patterns on them, thin pieces of bread, and those petit fours they served at parties.

  After taking a bite,Truvy delicately chewed. Jake ate his sandwich in three bites but waited for her before he went for something else. He’d take whatever she took.

  She went for a mouse-size piece of cheese.

  He picked cheese, too.

  With lively music playing in the background and Dutch rubbing in the wax on the bar, Truvy asked, “Why aren’t you a boxer anymore?”

  “Well,” Jake responded, after swallowing, “I got tired of having my face busted.”

  Tilting her head sideways, she gazed at him as if assessing where he’d taken his hits. He knew his nose was a little crooked. And he had a few scars. His eyebrows weren’t perfect, but his smile was all right. He’d never had any teeth kn
ocked out.

  For the fun of it, he gave her a wide, toothy grin, then said teasingly, “All mine.”

  He was glad when she laughed at his joke.

  An olive found its way into her hand next.

  He took a half dozen to her one.

  “I’ve never known a man,” she said, blushing as if implying she hadn’t known any men—period—aside from that Moose character, “who was keen on being the strongest. I wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the vigors of boxing and weight training. And I myself am,” she added softly, “an athlete.”

  He knew her admission was difficult. Since he’d met her, she’d played down her coaching position. That she invited him to share his views on boxing and weight training strangely made him feel good.

  No woman had ever talked to him about this. All they cared about were his muscles. They wanted to feel them, have him flex them, make them grow taut and hard, have him show off his stamina. Truvy’s affirmation that she was, in some way, like him made him feel closer to her than he’d ever felt to a woman—even his wife. “Boxing is a sport. Bodybuilding is an art. Boxing depends on muscular and cardiovascular endurance. Bodybuilding depends on discipline and control.” He popped another olive into his mouth. “Aren’t you studying anatomy in that science book?”

  “They don’t go into that much detail on this topic. They do have a section on gym equipment.” Her hand paused, tiny olive between her fingers. “And—oh, I read that men who lift weights were sickly as children.”

  The ego that she’d been building in him fell flat.

  “I never was sickly.”

  “No . . .”—her gaze went slowly over him and he felt her stare, innocently seductive, at every inch of his body—“. . . you don’t look sickly.”

  She took another sandwich but, before sampling it, commented,“Your childhood must have been hard. You said you don’t speak with your parents. How awful.”

  “Not really.”

  “Yes, it is. I can’t imagine not talking with my aunts. They’re the only relatives I have. They’re a bit bohemian.”