Portraits

by Stef Ann Holm

  “Is there a problem?” Wyatt’s intrusion gave her a start. Dropping the pan in the sink, she whirled around. He stood less than a foot away from her.

  “N-No,” she stammered. “There’s no problem. Everything’s fine.” I hope.

  The wheeze of the dry-hinged screen door in the mudroom slammed closed in Tug’s wake. Entering the kitchen, he wrinkled his freckled nose and announced, “Something stinks in here.”

  That was the last thing Leah needed to hear. “Oh, do be quiet, Tug, or I’ll box your ears.”

  Tug shrugged, then seeing Wyatt, braced his hands on his six-guns. “Hey, Wyatt, are you part of the posse?”

  Wyatt folded his arms across his chest. “I reckon I could be. Who you going after today?”

  “More bad guys.”

  “Sounds like they’ll be tough.”

  “I reckon.”

  Rosalure came inside and set the porcelain doll she’d gotten for her birthday on the counter. “Tug, you were supposed to be watching the baby. You just left her in the grass on her face.” She frowned. “Some father you are.”

  “I’m no dad. I’m a cowboy.”

  Rosalure stared at Wyatt with reservation. Earlier, when Leah had told the children Wyatt was coming for supper, Rosalure had asked if she was planning on marrying Wyatt. The question had caught Leah completely off guard and she’d told Rosalure that she and Wyatt weren’t courting. They were merely friends who enjoyed each other’s company.

  “Why doesn’t everyone sit down?” Leah suggested. “Rosalure, show Wyatt to his seat.”

  “Does he have to sit where my dad sat again?” Rosalure asked. The question wasn’t voiced with malice, but Leah sensed a trace of resentment in her daughter’s tone. Rosalure had been five when Owen died, and she remembered her father. She knew that the head of the table had been his. When Wyatt had stayed for hot dogs the last time, Leah had been uncertain whether to seat Wyatt in that particular chair. But logic outweighed sentimentality. There were four chairs at the table at all times—one east, west, south, and north, with two extras in the corner of the room. It would have been foolish to get an extra chair and set it next to Tug or Rosalure just so Wyatt could avoid sitting where Owen had.

  It wasn’t until now that Leah realized there was another solution. One that wouldn’t disrespect Rosalure’s feelings about her father’s importance at the table when he’d been the head of the household.

  “No, Rosalure,” Leah replied. “I’ll sit where Dad used to sit, and Wyatt can sit in my chair.”

  Rosalure smiled. “Okay.”

  While everyone went into the dining room, Leah carefully poured the Italian gravy into her best ironstone bowl with its lily and lotus pattern. She dumped the noodles into another. They landed in a chunk. Thoughtfully biting her lower lip, she wished she knew a way to fix them. Perhaps if she broke the noodles up with a fork. She tried that method and it worked somewhat, though there were still lumps.

  With a sigh, she picked up the gravy and brought it to the table. Setting the bowl in the center, she was rather proud of herself. The dish looked appetizing and smelled very edible.

  “Looks good,” Wyatt said, and Leah’s heart soared. Now if only it would taste just as good.

  She made several trips to the kitchen, bringing the noodles, bread, a water pitcher, and the flowers. When everyone had been served, Leah motioned, “Well, everyone, buon appetito.”

  Tug gazed at his minuscule portion. “I thought you said this was gravy. How come it’s not brown?”

  “Italians call tomato sauce gravy.”

  Leah put a small amount of the sauce and noodles on her fork, as did Wyatt, Rosalure, and Tug. It seemed as if they all sampled her efforts at the same time. So it was at that corresponding moment that Leah was sure they all knew something was terribly wrong. The flavor was so pungent with garlic it was practically dangerous. She immediately set her fork down and took a long drink of ice water. Rosalure did likewise, but Wyatt was more discreet. At least he nodded with a tight smile while chewing, then put his utensil on the edge of his plate and drank his water without a breath in between gulps.

  It was then that Tug said, “I like it, Momma. Almost better than American cheese.” Then he scooped a huge bite onto his fork, shoving the wad into his mouth and staining his cheeks tomato red in the process.

  * * *

  “Well, I don’t know what could have happened,” Leah said for the fifth time as she cleared the table.

  Wyatt sat back, watching the efficient way she moved and not caring all that much that the gravy had been so riddled with garlic even he couldn’t force his serving down.

  “I suppose I got mixed up on cloves of garlic and heads of garlic, I thought they were the same. So when the recipe called for six . . . I just assumed you put all six whole clumps in. I guess that’s where I went wrong.”

  “It’s all right,” Wyatt reassured her as she took his empty plate. Leah had brought out an emergency substitute of Armour’s beef sandwiches with the offer of Bromo Seltzer for anyone who needed it. Only Tug polished off his Italian meal without a single complaint, which Leah couldn’t stop commenting on. She’d even risen from her chair and tested his brow for temperature.

  “Well, now that I’ve finished humiliating myself,” Leah said as she wiped the last crumbs from the table. “We can retire into the parlor.”

  Rosalure and Tug had already left the dining room and were in the parlor. Leah had asked Rosalure to rewind the Edison. The symphony notes drifted in a soft melody as he and Leah entered the room together. He didn’t know what the foreign opera lady was singing, but he sort of liked the way she sounded when the man sang with her. She had a high-pitched voice, and though he couldn’t decipher a word, from the lilting tone alone he figured they were singing about being in love.

  “Please, sit down.” Leah offered him a chair by the hearth once again, and he obliged. Then she took a seat opposite him and folded her hands in her lap, though she didn’t appear to be relaxed. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  Wyatt began to have reservations about coming. He’d been so starved for moments like this that he’d made a rash judgment in accepting Leah’s invitation. Throughout supper, he realized that by sharing her table, her home, her children, he was torturing himself. All this around him was something he couldn’t have.

  Rosalure brought out a tablet and pencil, sat on the davenport, and began to sketch, while Tug sat down at Wyatt’s feet and stared at him. Wyatt was fond of Tug and enjoyed fooling around with him about cowboys and makeshift bad guys. In a way, Tug reminded Wyatt of his youngest brother Todd. Todd had always gone around with an exaggerated swagger and a chest puffed out with bluster as he hunted for rustlers on their land.

  Crossing his legs at the ankles, Wyatt asked Leah, “Do you know what she’s singing about?”

  Leah straightened, licking her lips. “Well, yes, I do. That’s Musetta’s aria. She’s walking down the street thinking how—” A hint of color marked her cheeks. “—how beautiful and desired she is. How graceful and charming she is as people turn to admire her. She loves their glances, and Marcello and Alcindoro comment on her as she passes by.”

  The tempo changed and Wyatt wondered, “What’s she saying now?”

  “That passion has betrayed her. And deep in her heart she’d never tell. She’d rather die.”

  Wyatt grew more interested. “Tell what?”

  Leah’s lashes lowered along with her voice when she gave him an explanation. “About the passionate affair.”

  “What’s a passionate affair?” Tug asked, scooting over to Leah.

  “Never you mind.” Leah cut him off with a stern warning.

  But Wyatt wanted to know more about the passionate affair. He was beginning to see the allure of this opera stuff if it was about lovers and liaisons.

  Easing back in his chair, Wyatt brought his foot onto his knee. “How do you know that’s what it’s about when
it’s not being sung in English?”

  Leah smoothed a shock of hair from Tug’s brow. “Though most would think it’s a foolish waste of time, I’ve been studying the Italian language so I can speak it.”

  “I noticed that you talk that way sometimes.”

  Her eyes were a golden brown, her seductive brows arched. “Does it bother you?”

  “No. In fact, I like it.”

  The radiant smile on Leah’s lips was enough to lure Wyatt into asking her to engage in their own passionate affair and damn the consequences.

  “If you don’t mind,” Leah said, rising from her chair, “I’d like your opinion on something.” She went to the black-lacquered upright piano and took a folio from its fringe-scarfed top. “I’ve narrowed down my entries for the contest to these two. Which photograph do you like the best?”

  She handed Wyatt the folder and opened it for him. Putting the pictures side by side, she stood back and crossed her arms beneath her breasts. Wyatt lowered his gaze, feeling hers on him with expectancy. On the left was a photo of a ladies’ dress pinned to a clothesline. Long shadows were created by the grooves of the skirt gathers. These lines were a contrast to the lighter-colored fabric that stood out on the scoop-necked bodice where ribbons dangled. Beneath the dress, pale rose petals littered the grass. He liked the representation of femininity.

  The photo on the right of the folio was of a delicately constructed corner curio cabinet filled with glass figurines of miniature clocks. Sunlight streamed in through an unseen window, creating the illusion that there were two of each clock—one real and one shadow.

  Both were fine photographs, and he was impressed with Leah’s ability to capture something so simple and make the image jump off the paper to catch his attention.

  Lifting his eyes to meet hers, he asked, “I suppose the judges are men.”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’d enter the dress.”

  “Really?”

  “The clocks are very good. I would have never thought to take a picture of something like that. But the dress will capture a man’s attention better.” Wyatt closed the folio and handed it back to her. “It captured mine. You’re a good photographer, Leah.”

  Their knuckles brushed as she took the pictures. The touch left a jolt in his heart and he looked at her in a way that he had no business doing. She tried to disguise her blush by turning away, but he saw the heightened color on her cheeks.

  The music ended and Tug jumped up. “Can I crank the Edison this time?”

  “Yes,” Leah replied in a composed voice after she replaced the folder and resumed her seat. “You may.”

  Wyatt thought it best to rein in his wayward thoughts. So he watched as the boy lifted a heavy-looking arm off the black disk. Then he opened the grillwork cabinet where a large horn was located. There was a handle—the type Wyatt had seen in front of automobiles. Tug grasped it and gave the handle many turns, as if winding a clock. The plate above began to rotate and spin, and Tug set the arm down on one of the grooves. Music sprang forth once again.

  “Haven’t you ever seen a phonograph before?” Leah inquired as the opera wrapped around them.

  “Frankly, no.”

  She gave him a perplexing gaze. “How is it that you haven’t seen phonographs or eaten hot dogs?”

  There had been many clues he’d given her to kindle her interest about where he’d come from. They hadn’t been intentional. They had merely been the truth of things. To a certain degree. The absolute truth was too harsh. But he began to wonder how she would feel knowing where he’d been. Would she look at him as if he were dirt? Or would it matter to her?

  Wyatt would never know. Because telling anyone the truth was not in his cards. That part of his life was behind him, so there was no point in discussing it. Common knowledge of his background would only cause people to shun him. He just wanted to get on with living and make up for all those years. Get on with his freedom and make a fresh start with the money. His future was tied up in those satchels. He had to find them. And then, when he was well-off, maybe Leah might . . .

  Maybe she might change her mind about New York and settle in with him.

  Wyatt had imagined himself wed to a younger woman and starting his own house full of children. But at thirty-eight, any woman of a companionable marriage age would have to be a spinster or widow. Recalling the Clinkingbeard sisters, Wyatt amended his thought that his intended probably wouldn’t be much to look at if she was a spinster. In the west, men outnumbered women, and those who weren’t yet married past the age of twenty would have to be about as handsome as a sack of horseshoes. She’d sure be no parlor ornament, not like Leah.

  But Leah didn’t come alone. She came with a package, part of which was a dead husband’s memory, another man’s offspring, and a loaded Kodak camera.

  Wyatt should have shied away, but Leah was so like him in spirit that he couldn’t back off. And neither could he outright lie to her when she gazed at him so openly.

  His answer was long in coming, but at least he didn’t stretch the truth too far. “I’ve been a cowboy, so I haven’t been to too many built-up towns. I’ve mostly seen the back country of Wyoming, Montana, and Utah.” He purposefully omitted Colorado. “I haven’t seen much.” It wasn’t a total fabrication, though he hadn’t been an honest-to-goodness cowboy for over twenty years. Ranging and branding herds had been a sideline during his teens until he’d gotten into more lucrative ways to earn a buck. But throughout some freezing winters when traveling was rough going, he and the boys would fall back on what they knew to get them by. Cattle was about as good a way to make a few dollars as any when the nearest bank was between here and a blizzard.

  Tug came to life and scrambled back to Wyatt. “You’re truly a cowboy? I never thought you were for real ’cause you wash dishes.”

  “I’m just working here until I can get my place going.”

  This news unleashed a torrent of questions from Tug. “Can you rope cows? Can you ride broncs? Can you brand steers? Can you ride bulls?”

  “I can.” Or I could. There’d been a time he could ride anything with hair on it, be it bronc or bull. He’d been damn good at it, too. Won himself a few stakes in some traveling rodeos. But that was back when he wasn’t as heavy with muscles as he was now. His arms and legs had grown stronger and hardened in places that prevented him from being the willowy lad he once was.

  “Could you show me how to rope?” Tug was looking at him through hopeful eyes and practically panting with excitement like a lapdog. “I got a genuine Bob Lassiter lariat with a rawhide honda. It’s got a good grip.”

  “I reckon it would with a rawhide honda.”

  “Yep.” Tug vigorously shook his head. “It works real good. . . . I mean, I think it does. I’ve never been able to lasso anything, but I’m sure it works real good. It would work better if you showed me how to make it lasso my swing horse. I’ve been trying, but I can’t get it quite right. Could you please show me how to throw it?”

  Wyatt shifted in the chair, thinking that he was getting in deeper than was wise with the boy. But seeing that heartening grin on Tug’s face had Wyatt nodding. “Go fetch it then, and we’ll have a go of it.”

  “Gee! Thanks.”

  Tug was on his feet and bounding up the stairs.

  “That’s very nice of you, Wyatt,” Leah said. “He’s asked me to show him, but I don’t know how to throw a rope. Neither does Hartzell.”

  “There’s not much to it.” Wyatt figured he could still snag a cow. That was one thing a cowboy never forgot once he learned.

  Tug came back and halted in a breathless skid. Proudly, he presented Wyatt with his lariat. “See. I got it last Christmas.”

  “You’ve had the rope for nearly a year and haven’t caught anything yet?”

  “Nope.”

  “Where’s that horse?”

  “In the front yard.”

  Wyatt glanced at Leah and Rosalure. “You ladies coming?”

&nb
sp; Rosalure set her sketch pad down. “Sure.”

  Leah was already on her feet. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  “Come on then. Cowboy Tug is going to get his first bronc.”

  * * *

  Leah rested her arms on the porch railing next to Rosalure, watching as Tug swung out the rope over and over in an effort to snag the loop around the neck of his rocking horse. Each time, the circle fell short or didn’t hold its shape. His little face was determined when Wyatt corrected his throw and had him try again.

  After the thirtieth-odd time, whether it was the faint breeze, pure luck, or skill that suddenly kicked in, Tug got the rope around the horse’s neck. He let out a whoop so loud, he could have knocked the apples out of the tree.

  “I did it! I did it!”

  Rosalure left the veranda to check out the rope, as did Leah. Tug ran to her and took her hand to show her his accomplishment.

  “See, Momma. I did it.”

  “I see that.”

  “I’ve always wanted to be a cowboy, but Poppa keeps saying I’m going to work at the bank when I get bigger, like my dad did. I don’t want to. I’m going to be just like Wyatt when I grow up.”

  Leah spared a glance at Wyatt. Wistfulness had stolen into his expression.

  “I’m going to do it again,” Tug declared.

  She ruffled his hair, still gazing at Wyatt. The sunset was behind him, casting the brim of his hat and his broad shoulders in hues of gold. His handsome face had captured a place in her heart, and the obvious hit her. She desired him as a wife desired her husband. She was thinking about asking Wyatt Holloway to share her four-poster bed. It was a very liberal thought. Even too modern for her own beliefs, but she couldn’t stop wanting him.

  Leah had to get that notion out of her head immediately. What kind of mother was she to think such a thing in the company of her young children?

  Dismayed, Leah answered her own burning question. Maybe she was a mother who was missing intimacy. That closeness and bond with another person that came from touches and caresses of warm skin and naked embraces. Though she and Owen hadn’t been fervent in the bedroom, tenderness and cuddling afterward had made Leah feel loved.