“Thanks.” His clear, observant eyes prolonged the moment. She sensed he could read through her. Guess that she had her reservations about whisking her children to New York, much less Italy. But she’d reasoned the trip would be good for them. It wasn’t as if they were never coming back to Eternity.
“I wonder what the children are up to?” Leah mused, ducking out from Wyatt’s gaze. “It’s quiet in the parlor.”
She went toward the swinging door, pushing through with Wyatt behind her.
Only Rosalure sat on the carpet in the corner. The Ouija board had been abandoned for tiddledywinks. The colorful buttons were strewn across the carpet. Tug was nowhere in sight.
Rosalure came to Leah with a beribboned basket filled with bath salts and other toiletry articles. “Look, Momma. I got crab apple blossoms toilet soap for my bath. And even real perfume.” Hooking the handle through her arms, she picked up an atomizer and puffed some of the fragrance on Leah’s hand. “It’s genuine Eau de Cologne No. 4711, used by the royal and imperial families of Europe. The bottle says so.”
Leah fought the urge to sneeze. The perfume was pleasant but too sweet for her tastes. And she doubted royalty used a fragrance given a number of authenticity, but she didn’t discourage Rosalure’s faith in the product. “It’s an exquisite smell.”
Rosalure doused herself with the Eau de Cologne No. 4711, then went back to her pile of presents to sort through the goodies she’d gotten. This time Leah did sneeze. “A little lighter hand next time, Rosalure. A lady never dips herself with perfume.”
“But I wanted to smell sweet as a kiss. The bottle says that, too. That if you put on a lot, that’s what you’ll smell like.”
“Yes, well . . .” Leah cleared her throat and gave Wyatt a hasty glance. He stood next to the hearth perusing her wedding portrait on the mantel. “I think at even the mature age of ten years old, you don’t need to smell sweet as a kiss. There isn’t anyone you should be kissing.”
Rosalure’s cheeks turned pink, and she whispered beneath her breath to her mother, “I think I would let Donny kiss me.”
Leah kept her own voice soft. “You’ll do no such thing.”
Then she strode to Wyatt. He thoughtfully kept his gaze on the photograph. “This is your husband?”
“Yes.”
“He was quite older than you.”
“Twelve years.” Though the difference had seemed much broader than that. Owen wasn’t much for spontaneity. He wore his tie rather tightly. Leah wondered how old Wyatt was. She guessed he was in his mid to late thirties. The same age as Owen would have been. But with Wyatt, age seemed to be a matter of feeling. He didn’t show his years through his speech and manner. He acted as if life were just beginning for him, rather than being half gone.
The upstairs lavatory flushed and Tug came thundering down the steps and rounded the pocket door opening to the parlor, not missing an opportunity to disturb the tasseled fringe hanging from the grille.
“Tug, you didn’t do anything just now, did you?” Leah asked, over the sound of rushing water through the pipe in the wall.
“Yeah. I went to pee.”
“Oh, honestly. We didn’t need to hear that.”
“But you asked me.”
Wyatt cracked a smile and ruffled Tug’s hair. “You did ask the boy.”
“Yes, well, my mistake.” Then to the children, “It’s time to clean up and get ready for bed.”
“But I’m hungry,” Tug complained.
“You’ve been eating something or other all day.” Leah lay her hand on his shoulder and directed him toward the stairs. “I’ll be up in a minute to fill the bathtub.”
Rosalure held as many of her gifts in her arms as she could manage. “Momma, when he’s done with the bath, can I fill it with my crab apple blossom soaps?”
“Yes.”
With a smile, Rosalure mounted the steps behind her brother. That left Leah and Wyatt alone in the room. The surroundings became very quiet. Only the ticking of the clocks could be heard. And perhaps Leah’s beating heart. For some reason, she was very aware that they had been left on their own. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been in her parlor on numerous occasions with gentlemen. But those gentlemen had come seeking her services, or in the case of Mr. Winterowd and Mr. Quigley, they’d come to discuss their observances of her attributes, conversations she found very embarrassing. But she knew how to handle those men. She was smarter than them and she could usually figure out what they were thinking before they said it. That gave her the upper hand. With Wyatt, she hadn’t a clue as to what could be on his mind. His face was unreadable. Holding the plate, he stood there, putting his weight on his right leg, his hip semicocked and causing her attention to fall in the general direction of his abdomen.
“Would you care to sit down?” she offered.
“I should go.”
“You don’t have to.”
“But I should.” He reached for his hat and put it on. Then he walked toward her and her breathing hitched. Coming very close, he walked by. That masculine scent she’d detected on him earlier was still there. Still appealing to her senses. She, on the other hand, smelled too strongly of Corn’s emporium perfume.
Leah escorted him to the door. Once there, Wyatt turned to face her.
“Thanks for the invite,” he said, leaning into the jamb.
“You’re welcome. Though I don’t know how much you could have enjoyed the party. Geneva can be . . . well, herself. And Hartzell likes to talk only of the bank.”
“It was a family gathering, and they sometimes go that way.”
Leah felt a pang in his words. “How long has it been since you lost your family?”
“Too long to be feeling like I miss them.”
Without thought, Leah rested a comforting hand on Wyatt’s forearm. “How very sad for you, Wyatt.”
He gazed into her eyes and she had the strangest desire for him to kiss her. She hadn’t been kissed or held in a man’s embrace in three years. She’d thought that she didn’t require that closeness. But suddenly, she had an overwhelming need to be in Wyatt’s arms. It was the most peculiar sensation. Her body came to life in places that had long since been reserved and shut down.
She had only herself to blame that Owen had been the one man to kiss her. She’d had the opportunity with Frederick Warrick, but hadn’t allowed him to get close enough to her. Though why, she wasn’t sure. She’d liked him, but she hadn’t felt what she was feeling now with Wyatt—those deep emotions that swirled inside her and went beyond a physical attraction. She couldn’t let the moment pass her by and not find out what it was.
So when Wyatt moved a few short steps closer to her, she took one closer to him. His face was inches from hers and she tilted her chin upward. Waiting . . .
“Sweet as a kiss.” Wyatt spoke in a low tone that rippled across her skin. “I wonder if it is.”
Rather than kiss her on the mouth, he took her hand in his and kissed her wrist. Right at the point where her pulse zipped at a frantic pace. His mouth was warm and moist against her, and when he lowered her hand, he closed his eyes tightly for a second and then stared at her.
“I have to go.”
“Good evening, then,” she managed to say in a voice heavy with longing.
He looked as if he wanted to do more than just kiss her wrist. His fingers touched her cheek and he caressed her. “Fame fades away, Leah. It’s a vain prize that isn’t worth it.”
Then he turned and departed, leaving her to ponder the wisdom of his words.
11
Beauty does not ensnare men; they ensnare themselves.
—Chinese proverb
Wyatt should never have reached for Leah’s hand. It had been a stupid thing to do. But it had been either that or kiss her fully on the lips. The far less damaging was the wrist. For he was afraid that if he’d embraced her and taken her mouth, he would have wanted to take more.
In retrospect, the perfume had been what made him
act without thinking. Despite Leah’s not caring for the eau de cologne, Wyatt had. There was something to be said about a good-smelling woman. She belonged in the arms of a man who appreciated the floral scent and the soft curves behind the fragrance.
Even knowing that he was going to complicate things between them, he couldn’t help taking her wrist. Bringing that eau de cologne to his nose and smelling how sweet it really was, where the oils were warmed by the beat of her pulse. His subconscious mind went in one direction while his common sense went in the other—the wrong way. It had been a culmination of the day, he’d reasoned on the walk home. He’d been thinking of his family and missing them; he’d been thinking of a woman and missing one. It was only natural that he reach out to her. Oddly enough, she was the closest friend he had.
He’d been watching her among the guests, trying to decide what it was about her that appealed to him. He kept telling himself that she was an ordinary woman. But Leah wasn’t. She had ambition. Even while delivering something as common as a birthday party. She wanted to succeed. It was written all over her face and in the way she talked to Geneva. He admired Leah’s determination, for he felt the same intense steadfastness to make a success of himself. To turn his life around and finally do something meaningful.
But where Leah seemed headed for fame by garnering attention if she won that contest she had her heart set on, Wyatt just wanted some peace and quiet. No fanfare. No hoopla. Just a ranch, some cattle, a half-dozen or so hands . . . and a wife.
Montana and Wyoming were beginning to feel too far away. He’d ridden most of Eternity’s boundaries and saw a great potential in this land. The grasses were good and the water clear and abundant, and the drive over the foothills wouldn’t be too taxing on the stock when the seasons changed. Colorado did have something to offer a man with his purpose.
But Colorado also held bad memories he wanted to get away from. Namely, Telluride and Silverton. The places he’d used to haunt. But Eternity wasn’t any of them. Eternity was its own city. What good would a ranch in Montana or Wyoming be if he didn’t have a woman by his side? A woman like Leah. It was what a husband and wife put into the house that made it the right place to live, no matter if that house was a sod hut on the plains or a cabin in the mountains.
What Wyatt couldn’t reconcile was that Leah wanted different things out of life than he did. There was no point in figuring out a way to be with her if she wasn’t going to be with him. Her plans included a broad scale of people she didn’t know, knowing her. He’d had that before. Notoriety came with a penalty. There was no place else to go once you got to the top, but down.
At first light, Wyatt had gone to his diggings wanting to forget about something that couldn’t be. He had the whole day to work. Leo and Tu had ridden over to Denver to buy hard-to-find oriental spices. Despite the backbreaking labor he’d been doing most of the day, Wyatt hadn’t had any luck. After what Hartzell had told him about the land shifting, Wyatt had lain in bed most of the night thinking that those men who’d cut a shaft hadn’t found his satchels because they weren’t beneath that cross anymore. They had slipped some twenty feet down and weren’t in the same spot. That’s why Wyatt hadn’t been able to find them yet.
He’d surveyed another angle at which to dig. He’d been at it until well after dinner, barely stopping to drink a cup of the Arbuckle’s he’d brewed and eat a tin of lunch meat. He’d been hoping that he’d be rich by evening and his troubles over. But so far, not a sign of the apricot cans enveloping his future. Nothing. And Wyatt had dug fairly deeply. He could stand in a hole that came up to his navel.
Discouraged and angered, the summer sun beating down on him not helping the situation, Wyatt decided it was time he widened the hole. With a great amount of muscle, he took up his pick, held the iron tool above his head, and swung hard into the layers of sandstone in front of him, all the while thinking how good it was going to feel to tell Leo he had to quit his job. All the while thinking that it had been a hell of a Monday and he hadn’t a damn thing to shout about after hours of sweat and aching joints.
A cracking sound rendered the air on the pick’s impact. Wyatt had heard that noise too many times to be mistaken about what it meant.
He’d split the handle right down the middle.
Leaning forward and bracing his left hand on the bank, Wyatt let the pick slip out of his fingers.
“Son of a bitch,” he yelled, then slumped down the side of the hole and glared at the sun baking his skin to a deep tan. He could use a beer right now. A cold one with beads of moisture rolling down the sides. Just like Scudder had had. Only Wyatt couldn’t drink. No liquor, anyway. So the next best thing to a beer was a Coca-Cola.
Wiping the sweat and dirt from his brow with a piece of his old shirtsleeve, Wyatt put his hat back on and climbed out of the hole. Dusting himself off, he made fast work of covering the shallow pocket with branches and brush. He didn’t want to spread the sandstone out now. He was too hot. And he was too tired. He doubted that Scudder would come out on a hot day like today. Chances were, the marshal was at the Monte Carlo with a beer bottle cooling off his forehead.
But someone else might stumble on the spot and wonder who was digging around and for what. It was that thought alone that gave him the strength to level out the ground to a certain degree and recover it with the branches. By the time he was finished, he was so thirsty, he could think of nothing but that cold cola.
Wyatt began walking down the mountain, calculating that the new handle was going to cost him twenty cents, and the cola a nickel. At least there was some luck on his side today. He had exactly two bits on him.
* * *
“What kind of doorbell did you have in mind, Mrs. Kirkland?” Mr. Corn inquired. He stood behind the building supplies counter where the wall drawers were stocked with locks, keys, chain bolts, shutter knobs, steel sash pulleys, cupboard turns, cabinet hardware, screws, washers, and hinges.
“I’m not exactly sure,” she replied. “Nothing too fancy.”
“You mean none that play a melody?”
“Precisely.” Leah gazed at the many boxes he’d gotten down from the top shelf while using his roller ladder. He’d displayed over a half-dozen for her on the hardwood counter. Not knowing anything about electric doorbells, she couldn’t decide. “Perhaps if you told me about each one.”
Mr. Corn lined the boxes up in meticulous order, pointing to the first one. “Stratford design with nickel-plated gong.” The second. “Emerald escutcheon with chimes and antique copper sand.” The third, and so on. “Chicago design with electrocopper-plated cast gong. Mayfair with electroplated finish and metal gong. Royal with easy spring action. Fulton chime strike with latch bolts. And Regal with genuine bronze metal with either a flat or astragal face.”
His descriptions were of no help and she grew more confused than ever. “Which is the easiest to install?”
“They’re all about the same.” Mr. Corn waited for her to make up her mind, his stance anxious. He had another customer who needed fly screen cloth measured, and that gentleman was obviously impatient for services, by the way he kept drumming his fingertips on the cutting board.
Leah hated making rash purchases, especially when the product in question was mechanical. She wasn’t all that handy with a pliers and hammer, but she’d managed to fix the leaky kitchen faucet, tighten the wheel on Tug’s wagon, and replace a few of the split-rail fence boards. Electricity, however, was a different matter entirely. Its potency scared her. When she hooked the new bell up, she’d have to make sure she unscrewed the fuses before she handled any of the wires. But at least the house had been wired for an electric doorbell when it had been built, even though Owen hadn’t wanted a modern ringer. He’d preferred the old-fashioned crank type.
Mr. Corn cleared his throat and Leah frowned. “I’ll need another minute. Go ahead and help your other customer.”
He did just that, leaving Leah with the boxes of doorbells. She picked up the Mayfair. It did
have a pretty turn plate. Without wanting to appear ignorant, she didn’t open the box to read the instructions thoroughly. If they were all the same, what was the point? She didn’t know how any of them went together. But she guessed that it would be a simple matter of coupling the wires. Any nitwit could do that.
The shop bell above the front door rang and distracted Leah from making an immediate selection. Chicago, Fulton, Regal. They all looked sufficient. Eeny meeny miny mo. But she wanted a nice-looking bell, so she couldn’t use a children’s rhyme to choose something that made a statement when callers came to her door. Her pick would have to come down to personal preference.
Hard-falling footsteps of boots went toward the hardwood ice chest Mr. Corn kept at the front of the store by the cash register and furnace, and where the cracker barrel took center stage on wintry days with nothing better to do than sit and complain about the foul weather. Inside the cooler, Mr. Corn had ice-cold soda pop for sale: Hires root beer, Coca-Cola, and grape Fizzle.
She resolved to pick one doorbell, make her purchase, and be on her way. Geneva was watching the children until supper, and that gave Leah only two hours to get the new bell installed without being pestered and interrupted to referee squabbles.
The lid to the icebox opened and closed, and the phist of a bottle cap being removed sounded awfully refreshing. She might just treat herself to a root beer to drink on the walk home.
All this thought about cold soda pop made her look toward the icebox. When she did, she recognized the familiar figure beside it and her heartbeat came to life. Wyatt Holloway had come into the hardware store.
Leah hadn’t expected to see him until tomorrow. The Happy City was closed today, because Leo had to go into Denver. If she’d known she’d run into Wyatt, she would have changed her dress. She had on her working outfit, and though the fabric was supposed to be waterproof, the sizing had been washed out, allowing for accidents. She’d splashed some solution on the gathers, and although the spots were minuscule on her cravenette skirt, she knew they were there.
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