Upon his ascent of the wooden steps, she lifted her chin and smiled. “I’ve already removed the old doorbell. I’ll give it to Tug. He likes to take things apart with his Buck’s tool set. I suppose you did likewise when you were a little boy.”
Wyatt bent down to a crouch, absently picking up a discarded screw. “When I was eight, I took the hinges off the outhouse door and threw the bolts down the hole.”
“You were a naughty boy.” There was a trace of laughter in Leah’s voice.
“It sounds funny now, but it wasn’t back then. I got a whipping, because we didn’t have the extra money to replace the bolts. For the next couple of months, we had to use the privy with the door off until my dad could afford new ones.”
“What line of work was your father in?”
“He did a little of everything. He cut ties for the railroad and studded out silver mines. Mostly he hauled freight. He wasn’t home much when I was young.”
“I couldn’t imagine not having my father with me when I was growing up.” Leah took the Astoria plate out, held it flush over the hole left by the old ringer, and made markings around it with a pencil. “He was everything to me. My mother, too.” Her voice drifted on a sad chord. “But they’re both gone. Like your parents.”
Wyatt didn’t really want to get to talking about families. The subject depressed him and he fought against all the wondering, all the imagining of what everyone was doing with their lives.
Picking up the drill brace, Wyatt at least knew how to bore a hole to set screws. “Let me get that for you,” he offered when she took the plate away after making her scribes. But to get a level hole started, he’d have to sit where Leah was. Leaning forward, he motioned to where her knee was close to the doorjamb. “You have to slide over.”
“Oh, certainly.” Leah began to move out of the way, but the door opening was just barely wide enough for two people to occupy. When he bent to his knees, he accidentally pinned her skirt and trapped her before she got too far. Rather than apologize for it, he didn’t say a word, keeping her there next to him. She made no comment either, and he took that as a sign she wasn’t all that sorry to be sitting so close.
As Wyatt lifted the drill and began boring out the necessary screw holes, he caught himself trying to detect a hint of that sweet-as-a-kiss eau de cologne. She wasn’t wearing any that he could distinguish above the faintness of wood and new copper. He told himself that he wasn’t disappointed, but he was.
Holding the bit by the handle, he rotated the tool until he completed all five holes. Leah handed him the plate and held it against the door, then she passed over one of the screws. Their fingers touched and he fleetingly stared at her hand with rapid thoughts. She had a fine, capable hand. Soft as the skin of any peach and warm as the sunny side of a meadow; yet there was an unmistakable strength in that hand. Her fingernails were cut on the short side, though not so short as to lessen the sensuality of her slender, tapered fingers. He imagined those fingers gliding across his naked chest like the tickling whisper of down . . . those fingers reaching into his hair and pulling his head toward her mouth for a kiss . . .
Wyatt’s shoulders tensed. He couldn’t allow himself to be sidetracked by such vivid thoughts, and took the screw from her outstretched hand. “Screwdriver,” he said in a brisk tone.
She lay one in his open palm and he made a fast job of sinking the first screw.
“Do you ever think about inventions?” Leah asked, throwing him a little offtrack.
“No,” he replied honestly. “I think that there’s already too many inventions for people.”
“Oh, but I disagree. There’s so many wonderful things being developed. Why, Mr. Corn says he’s getting flyers everyday about products that will make our lives easier. The other day, he got one on an electric carpet sweeper.”
“I don’t need an electric carpet sweeper.”
“But I do.”
“I guess a woman would,” he conceded.
Leah sighed. “Don’t you think about telephones? About talking to people who are in a whole different place from you? I wonder if they will ever design a washer that can wring out the clothes automatically. Or if there’ll ever be such a machine that you can put flour and water into and have a loaf of bread come out?”
Wyatt finished with another screw. “There’ll never be a machine that can bake bread. It’s impossible. How would you flour a board? How would you knead it? Or put it in a pan to bake it?”
“I don’t know. You just would, because the inventors would make sure it could be possible.”
“Something like that isn’t possible.”
“I would have thought so myself a few years ago, but Mr. Corn sells a New Queen sewing machine with sixteen different attachments including a ruffler and even a quilter. He also has a new and improved gramophone where the records sound just as clear as if the music and singer were right in your parlor. His newest delivery was a genuine Bohn Syphon icebox, that has hurry-up air circulation so you don’t have to replace the block of ice as often. Now that’s progress,” she stated, plopping another screw into his hand. “I’d march right down there and buy it if it wasn’t so darned expensive. Mr. Corn wants twenty-two dollars and fifty cents for it.”
“I don’t see how newfangled objects can be so useful if no one can afford the price tag.”
Leah shook her head. “People in Eternity said they couldn’t afford electricity before the electric light plant was built and the power wheel installed. But almost everyone in town is wired to it now and can’t see themselves going without the convenience.”
“It’s no inconvenience to strike a match and light a lamp.”
“But with a lamp you have the hazard of fire. With electricity, you don’t.”
Wyatt could find no argument. He didn’t know the laws of physics when it came to electric light plants and the wheels that generated that monstrous power. A switch turning on a glass bulb perplexed him.
“We’re in a time of great inventions.” Leah toyed with the crank on the old doorbell and got no sound from it. “And I for one think it’s very exciting. No one thought man could fly, but the Wright brothers did in it the Kitty Hawk just nine months ago.”
Wyatt hadn’t heard about any Wright brothers and a Kitty Hawk. Men flying like birds was infeasible. “You mean they flew up in the air with hawk wings on?”
“Not with wings on them, silly.” Leah’s enchanting smile was irresistible. He fought against covering her mouth with his. “Though that’s been tried without much success. But in a flying machine that they built and called the Kitty Hawk. It had a body and two wings, just like a paper bird. Didn’t you read about it? The flight in North Carolina was monumental. The story ran in every newspaper last year; even the Eternity Tribune had an article about the historic event.”
“I missed it.”
“Well, I was quite impressed. I’d like to ride in a flying machine one day.” She put her finger thoughtfully to her lip. “But I’d like to ride in an automobile even more.”
“I hate automobiles,” Wyatt mumbled.
“But why? They’re so keen and modern. Automobiles are going to be the wave of the future. Everyone will have one.”
“I hope to God not. They smell like rotten eggs and their backfire scares horses.” Wyatt put the last screw in place. “If you want to get somewhere, either ride a horse or hitch a buggy to a pair of them. Horses don’t need gasoline to run. All they need is grass and water, and there’s plenty of that. For free,” he added with punctuation.
“Well, I have to disagree with you.” Leah removed the new doorbell from the box. “Automobiles are going to be big.”
“I’ll bet you they don’t last another year. By then, people will figure out they’re nothing but costly trouble.”
“When I buy one, I’ll let you have a ride in it, and you can eat your words when you see how wonderful and comfortable it is. You better hold on to your hat, because I’ll put my foot down on the pedal and s
peed down Main Street at fifteen miles an hour.”
“You want speed, darlin’, I’ll sit you in front of me on my horse, July, and run him fast enough to knock every last hairpin out of your pretty hair.”
Leah’s bright laughter pulled at his heartstrings. It had been longer than he could remember since he’d been affected by the sound of a woman’s voice. “You can be so funny, Wyatt. Why, I think you were a man who was supposed to be born for the Dark Ages, resistant as you are to progress.” Her smile was as intimate as any kiss. “Where have you been living? In a cave?”
Wyatt’s good feelings faded. Leah didn’t know how close she was to the truth, but he’d never let on. “I’ve been out of touch for a while,” was all he would confess to. “But I’m going to be doing some expensive living soon, so just you wait. I may even buy you that icebox you want.”
With that admission, Wyatt realized he was thinking about sticking around to prove his wealthy status to her. It was a stupid mistake on his part. One that he should have been more careful about. But it seemed as if his mind had a will of its own by implying he was staying near Eternity.
“With your investment money?”
“Yes.”
She dropped the subject of money, but he could tell she wanted to ask him something by the change on her face from animation to soft curiosity.
“Why is it that you aren’t married, Wyatt?”
Her question weighed upon him, his thoughts jagged and painful. “I blundered my youth. I wouldn’t have made a very good husband then.” Then to veer the topic of conversation down a path that was less defeating to him, he queried, “Do you have everything to put the bell in?”
Reluctantly, Leah glanced at the parts she’d spread out around her. She looked as if she knew what she was doing. Which was good, because he didn’t have a clue.
“Yes. I unscrewed both fuses so we don’t have any current running into the house. Everything is dead.”
That sounded like a wise maneuver. “I’ll just—” He picked up the bell component and turned it over. Two wires, one black and one white, stuck out from the back. “—just put these where they go.”
He moved his knees and Leah scooted backward away from the left side of the door. He instantly missed her closeness, yet at the same time he didn’t want her watching him too astutely. He was liable to do something stupid. Make a mistake and ruin something. About four feet up on the wall was a cutout in the wallpaper where a plate had once been. Two wires dangled, and he figured the ones hanging off the bell connected to them. Simple enough.
“I’ll go outside and hold the bell in place for you.” Leah attempted to rise, but her foot caught on the handle of the screwdriver, and before she was fully standing, she had to put her hand on his shoulder to keep from falling. She landed on her knees and would have fallen to her backside if he hadn’t caught her. “Oh,” she gasped, her face inches from his. “I’m sorry . . .”
Her eyes were an entrancing shade of golden brown, the lashes framing them thick and sweeping. The ivory of her skin was flawless, the structure of her cheekbones high and alluring. If he were to move his head ever so slightly, he would be at an angle in which to thoroughly ravage her lips with his own. The temptation was so strong, he couldn’t make it go away.
He brought his chin up and put his hand on her jaw, his lips gently meeting hers in a quiet but potent kiss. The forced calm he’d been holding onto shattered through him as he drank in the sweetness of her mouth against his. He kissed her harder, moving his lips over hers. He didn’t touch her anyplace but her mouth, and though he craved her arms around him, he didn’t push her to do so. This had to be enough, because he couldn’t risk frightening her away. His lonely soul melted into the kiss and he wanted it to last forever.
The flame had been struck, and Wyatt felt himself burning up and craving more. Time had all but dimmed his recollections of kissing. He’d never kissed a woman he cared more about than the moment of pleasure she could give him. He’d never felt such passion that his blood pounded through his chest, his head . . . his heart. His mouth on Leah’s erased his preconceived thoughts that there was no harmony between a man and woman without sex. He was wrong. With Leah, just kissing her was satisfying.
He would have taken the kiss further, made it more intimate, but Leah wasn’t one of the girls down on River Street. And they were sitting in her doorway. She was respected and not apt to fall on the floor with him, despite his wanting to.
Leaving her mouth, his own afire with the heat consuming him, Wyatt held her at arm’s length. Very shaken, he released his hands from her shoulders. Several seconds passed while he found his voice, and when he did it was raw with passion. “That shouldn’t have happened.”
Leah pushed a lock of hair from her cheek. She licked her damp lips. They were soft, and still so very inviting. “I’m not sorry,” she whispered.
He almost took her into his arms and kissed her again, but he had to wonder what good could come of a romance between two people going in opposite directions.
Not quite sure what to make of her honesty, Wyatt tucked down the brim of his hat so she couldn’t see his eyes when he admitted, “I haven’t seen or touched anything soft in a long time. I’m no person of great virtue, Leah. You tempt me. You have from the first minute I laid eyes on you. I had to know if a woman’s mouth was as sweet as I remembered, or if I dreamed the whole thing up.”
“Wyatt . . . I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say.” He raised his head. “You’ve got a crowded big city on your mind. I’ve got wide-open spaces on mine. I don’t see the two of them ever meeting at a crossroad. We should leave things as they are. Without complications.”
Leah’s lashes swept across her cheekbones as she cast her eyes downward. “I’d still like to consider us friends.”
“Nothing’s changed.”
Her gaze lifted and they stared at one another. A clock inside tolled the hour. Leah spoke in a velvet murmur, “Rosalure and Tug will be home in thirty minutes. They’ll be underfoot.”
“Then we better get on with what we were doing.”
Only Wyatt’s thoughts weren’t on black-and-white wires, reading instructions or doorbells. The harder he tried to ignore the truth, the more it persisted. He wanted to stay in Eternity, and he wanted Leah to stay with him. But he wouldn’t hold her back. The only problem was, how long could he wait for her?
Wyatt had cleaned up the tools and was putting them away in the toolbox when the children came to the gate. Rosalure held a basket with a cloth covering the top, and Tug had a toy whistle between his lips.
Rosalure waved as Leah returned to the doorway from the back of the house after reconnecting the fuses.
The gate slammed closed behind the boy and girl, and Tug began to march with soldier’s arms. He blew the whistle with a repetitive cadence as he stomped over the flagstones.
The shrill of that whistle made the blood in Wyatt pound to a roaring beat. He willed himself to block out the sound. He told himself he was immune to it and that the noise didn’t mean a thing to him anymore.
Rosalure came up the steps while Tug did an about-face and marched toward the gate again. “Hello, Momma. I brought home some orange fritters.” Her gaze fell rather speculatively. “Hello, Mr. Holloway. You’re here again?”
“Your mother needed help putting in the new doorbell.”
“How does it work?” Rosalure asked.
“I don’t know,” Leah said. “We haven’t tried it. Do you want to be the first?”
Rosalure nodded her enthusiasm, grasped the keylike turn and gave it a single motion to the right. From above the front door where Wyatt mounted the chime box came a repeated trio of three notes.
Whhhrrrrrrrr! As Tug neared, the piercing sound of the whistle made Wyatt tense so tightly, he felt as if his bones would snap. Instead of dwelling on the noise, he looked at Leah. She’d lifted the cloth off Rosalure’s basket and was investigating the content
s.
“They look yummy, Rosalure.”
“Tug even helped make some.”
Tug ceased his marching and yelled toward the porch. “I made the lumpy ones.”
Leah smiled. “I’m sure they taste very good.”
“They do. Nanna let me eat five.”
“There goes his appetite,” Leah sighed. Then she gazed hesitantly at Wyatt. They hadn’t spoken much for the past half hour. “Would you care to stay for supper? It won’t be much. Just hot dogs.”
Wyatt had no set plans. The idea of staying with Leah, of watching her, listening to her, hearing the sounds of a family was too much to walk away from to eat alone. And if Leo could eat hot dogs, Wyatt figured he choke a few down, too. “Sure,” he replied. “I’d like to stay for supper.”
“I’m glad.” Her smile was genuine and kind. As if she truly wanted to hold onto the fragile relationship they were forming. “It won’t take me long to fry the dogs. Rosalure, could you set an extra place?”
“I guess, Momma.” Rosalure gazed at Wyatt, then went into the house.
“Tug,” Leah called. “You come on in and wash your hands.”
Tug marched toward the door. Whhhrrrrrrr! Whhhrrrrrrr! Whhhrrrrrrr-Whhhrrrrrrr-Whhhrrrrrrr! Over and over, he blew that whistle.
Wyatt felt as if his head was going to split open. He would have put his hands to his ears if he could have stopped the sound from pulling him back. But it was too late. . . .
The dark memories surfaced, much like water working its way up a well shaft. The past burst to the surface, and Wyatt was helpless to keep it from gurgling to life.
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