He wondered again if Allie knew these birds were out here. Remembering how she loved to feed the birds in the orchard, he thought she’d probably get a kick out of seeing them. And like it or not, he knew he’d get a kick out of showing them to her. It might be a nice change for her, a chance to get away from her sister.
“Will you just forget about it?” he muttered to himself again, making a disgusted noise. Allie was no princess who needed rescuing.
And he sure as hell didn’t own a white horse.
~~*~*~*~~
Despite acting as his own Dutch uncle, Jeff looked up eagerly the next time he heard the screen door open. But instead of Allie, as he expected, it was Olivia Ford who stood on the back porch. She moved to the rocker and sat down, watching him as though he were a most fascinating subject.
He was still wary. He saw nothing of the wild harpy who had pitched a tantrum at the dinner table and sunk her teeth into his finger. In fact, with her pale hair secured by a cherry-colored ribbon, she looked rested and very tidy, like someone expecting visitors or going to a tea party. But there was a smug, knowing glint in her expression.
The swallows flitted back and forth, while a silent, awkward moment stretched between them as they studied each other. Eli Wickwire had said that Olivia’s only problem was her fits, but Jeff wasn’t so sure. Hell, the whole town referred to Allie and her sister as crazy. Allie seemed perfectly normal, but what if Olivia really was deranged? She couldn’t very well be blamed for her behavior. When he’d looked into her eyes last night at dinner she’d seemed sane enough to him, just spoiled and willful. But he didn’t have much experience with lunatics. Drunks and belligerent cowboys, yes—mean bastards and cranky bitches, some.
So which was it? Was she touched in the head, or merely a conniving, coddled, overgrown brat, determined to keep Allie under her thumb?
“Afternoon, Miss Olivia,” he ventured, since she seemed not inclined to speak first. “How are you today?”
“Me? Why, I’m fine, Mr. Hicks. In fact, it’s such a pretty day, I thought I’d come outside for awhile and take some air while Althea is napping. She seems to be rather tired today.” A shadow of concern crossed her delicate features.
Jeff dropped his gaze to the gear he was oiling. “Is she? Do you think it’s because of last night?” It wasn’t a very subtle question, but he was doing his best.
Olivia leaned back in the rocker and gave it a slight push to put it into motion. “Last night? Oh, you mean all the preparations for dinner? I’m sure it’s possible. She takes such good care of me, just like a mother cat with one kitten. She really doesn’t have much energy left for company. One person can only do so much, you know.”
Kitten. Jeff glanced at the teeth marks on his hand. More like a cougar with a burr up its ass. But he stifled a smart remark. Allie had said her sister had no memory of her fits. Well, damn, maybe it was true. How else could she carry on this conversation with him as though nothing had happened? Maybe he’d been too harsh in his judgement of Olivia—he knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of that kind of thinking. God knew the display he’d seen at dinner yesterday wasn’t the everyday act of a rational person. His curiosity demanded an answer to this riddle and the only way he could think of learning that answer was to spend a little time with Olivia Ford. But how? She wasn’t the type a person could engage in conversation. She seemed so immature. Then an idea struck him.
“You know, I found a family of barn swallows in there,” he gestured at the rickety structure behind him. “They’re just babies—would you like to see them?”
She clapped her hands together girlishly and left the rocker in an eddy of long curls and flowing skirts. “Oh, yes, how wonderful!”
Jeff put down the screwdriver he was holding and wiped his hands on the rag he’d stuffed in his back pocket. “Come on this way, ma’am, and watch your step. It takes a minute for your eyes to adjust to the dim light in here.”
Olivia giggled as they stepped into the barn. “Ma’am. No one has ever called me that. It makes me sound all grown up.”
Jeff made no comment, but wondered if this little-girl act was just that, an act. Or was there really the mind of a child in this adult’s form? He led the way over the hard-packed mud floor to the corner where the swallows were nesting. “There, see?” He pointed up at the nest. “One of the parents is feeding them.”
Olivia looked up, following the direction of Jeff’s arm. “Ohh, aren’t they precious?” She stood with her hands clasped to her chest, and delight made her face glow. This innocence and sweetness were not what he’d seen when she’d eyed him from the porch.
“They’re sure growing fast. The first time I saw them, they didn’t have any feathers at all. Now they’ve got that baby fuzz. I suppose they’ll be learning to fly pretty soon. I was hoping your sister could see them before they’re gone.”
She turned to him with gratitude in her voice. “Oh, Mr. Hicks, I know Althea would like to see this! She just loves birds—she can even make them come to her and eat from her hand.” A scowl flashed across her features as she muttered, “I could never get them to do that for me.”
“Well, maybe when Allie—I mean, when Miss Althea wakes up from her nap you can send her out here to have a look.”
Olivia tapped her chin with her fingertip. “Hmm, I don’t think today would be good. She’s so tired. I know! Let’s make it a surprise. Althea is always doing little things for me, and I never really get to pay her back. Tomorrow would be better. Say, in the morning, when she brings you your breakfast. Tell her to close her eyes so that she’s won’t have a clue about what you’re doing, then lead her in here to have a look. I probably won’t be up in time—you two are such early risers and I guess I’ve always been a slugabed. But I know she’ll be thrilled. I wish I could see her face!”
The sincerity of Olivia’s wish to please her sister surprised Jeff. Maybe she recognized that Allie got so few small pleasures in her life. Doubt niggled at the back of his mind, but he dismissed it. Those years as a sheriff still made him second-guess people.
“Sounds like a good idea to me.”
“Yes, doesn’t it?”
Olivia left him then and went back into the house. The next time Jeff saw her was later that afternoon when Seth Wickwire came out with a grocery delivery from his father’s general store. She came down the back porch steps, smiled at Seth, and handed him what looked to be a letter to mail.
Just before she turned to climb the steps again, she waved at Jeff and gave him a smile too.
~~*~*~*~~
“Got anymore swell ideas to get even with Hicks?” Floyd Endicott took a long pull from a whiskey bottle and wiped his mouth on his shirt sleeve.
“I got him lookin’ over his shoulder, don’t you worry,” Cooper Matthews replied and took the bottle. The two men occupied their usual post, the back doorway of Kincade’s Livery. Floyd sat on the milking stool and Cooper leaned against the door frame with his arms folded over his chest. This late at night, even the clanging piano at the Liberal Saloon was silent. “He’ll think twice before he even goes to the outhouse. Didn’t you see how scared he looked the other day?”
Floyd shifted uncomfortably on the milking stool. “I dunno Cooper, he just looked riled up to me. An’ you heard him yourself—he don’t care what happens to him. Anyways, what if he don’t come back to town? It’s nigh on to impossible to get even with a man when you don’t meet up with him.”
Cooper gave him a poisonous look. “It’s a good thing I’ve got the brains in this outfit, Floyd, or we’d be like bogged heifers. You don’t need to come face to face with him to get revenge. Anyway, maybe he doesn’t care what happens to him, but I think he cares about that Ford woman. That son of a bitch,” he continued bitterly, talking to the empty street outside, “still actin’ like he’s better’n everyone else, after all that’s happened. He killed my boy but tried to make me look bad, like I pulled the trigger. Folks around here blame me almost as much as
they blame Hicks.” He turned to Floyd, worked up into an angry rant. “I expected that boy to be a comfort to me in my old age. Who’s goin’ to do that now?”
Floyd shrugged. “Hell, Cooper, you could just get married again.”
“You got anything else on your mind besides females?”
“Well, they’re soft and some of ‘em smell nice and are pretty to look at. A woman is even better than a dog for keepin’ a man warm on a cold night.”
“Yeah, and they’re more trouble than any dog ever thought of being. At least if a dog pisses you off, you can throw it outside or shoot the damned thing. Do that with a female and folks who got nothin’ better to do take it into their heads to complain. That’s how I landed in jail one time.” Cooper waved a hand in disgust. “Damn it, Hicks even turned that crazy Ford woman against me. Well, by God, he’s got to pay for insultin’ me. Her too. But I’m going to fix ’em both, startin’ tonight.”
Floyd shrugged and passed the whiskey bottle to him. “Maybe we just ought to leave well enough alone. He don’t bother us, and we don’t bother him. Anyway, there’s something not right about someone who talks like a dead man.”
“He called you a dimwit,” Cooper reminded him.
A faint light of realization crossed Floyd’s slack features. “Hey, that’s right.”
“He thinks you’re stupid, Floyd. As stupid as an old cow.”
“That bastard!”
“How do you like that, Jeff Hicks thinkin’ you’re so damned dumb while he’s better than anyone else?”
Floyd was clearly insulted. “Well, by God, I don’t like it a-tall.”
Satisfied, Cooper smiled. He drank from the whiskey bottle and turned to head back to his shack. “Then grab that lantern and come on. We ain’t the only ones who want to get the upper hand with Hicks, and I know about a woman who’s even willin’ to pay us to do it. A right smart sum she’s offering, too. We got us some work to do.”
~~*~*~*~~
The next morning Althea rose early. Though she’d heard Olivia stirring around several times before dawn and had made a couple of trips to her sister’s door to check on her, at least she’d been able to sleep in her own bed. Or rather, lie in her own bed. At any rate, it was more restful than sitting up in a chair as she’d done the previous night. But with Olivia rattling around in her room, sleep had come to Althea in fits and starts. Most of the rest of the night she lay staring at the ceiling and thinking of Jeff. What he’d told her about himself, and how he looked, and the way that Allie sounded on his tongue.
Now she padded to the window, gritty-eyed and tired, and looked out at the clean new day. Ribbons of mist lingered in the cottonwoods down by the creek bottom, and above them dawned a sky that was pink and blue and yellow-white with a rising sun. A pair of mallards skimmed the treetops toward the water, quacking as they flew. Dew sparkled like crystals on the overgrown lawn, making it seem more magical than unkempt. It was a beautiful pastoral scene.
A movement caught her eye. She dropped her gaze to the yard where she saw Jeff tinkering with the old seed drill. He looked so much better than he had the first day she met him. Now his back was straight and he stood a little taller. Working in the sun had erased his unhealthy pallor, and his hands were strong and steady. She had kissed that man—God, had it been just two days ago? After what had happened at dinner that night, it seemed like ten years ago.
She gripped the window sill. What if that were her husband down there, starting his day, heading off to the fields? They would build a life together, just the two of them. She would be like the other farm wives around the valley—she’d cook big hearty meals to feed her hungry man and their sturdy, healthy children. There would be chickens and cows to tend. In the summer the whole family would pile into the wagon to go to the grange dance on Saturday nights, and she would save all the waltzes for Jeff. No one would stare at her and whisper behind their hands about the peculiar Ford sisters, because she would not be Althea Ford. She’d be Mrs. Allie Hicks.
At harvest time she would put up preserves and fruit and vegetables to fill the pantry, saving the prettiest and best samples to enter in the state fair. On cold winter nights they would burrow beneath down-filled quilts and she would confess her love to him again and again. Jeff would whisper her name and tell her that he loved her too while he pulled her into his arms and kissed her . . .
Girl, stop that lollygagging and do your chores. They won’t get done by themselves.
Althea released her hold on the sill and left the window. Turning to her washstand, she poured some water into the bowl and caught her own reflection in the mirror hanging over it. Crimson-cheeked Althea Ford stared back at her, not Allie Hicks. But it was Amos Ford’s voice she heard in her memory, stern and cold.
When Allie went downstairs she was surprised to find that all of yesterday’s dishes had been washed and put away. The teacups were placed right side up in the china hutch, as Olivia stored them, rather than upside down, as Allie preferred. But she was touched by her sister’s effort, just the same. Olivia seemed to know instinctively when Allie had been pushed to the end of her rope, and would do something nice for her, like wash the dishes or offer to brush her hair. The little gestures always made Allie feel small and selfish for those moments when she would wish she were someplace far away.
Or with someone else far away. She glanced out the window at Jeff.
Better that she keep her mind focused on the resolution she had come to during the hours she’d spent at Olivia’s bedside. That dreams and wishes were luxuries she couldn’t afford. They only tore at her heart and had no possibility of coming true. She had her duty and responsibility, and Jeff Hicks had his job to do around the farm. Nothing more. And come harvest time, he’d be gone. Yes, best that she remember that, best all the way around, no matter how it made her heart ache.
Not only for her sake, but for Olivia’s, too.
~~*~*~*~~
Jeff had started in on the seeder again at first light. He had to fix it today or give up—time was slipping away and that field had to be planted. He was engrossed with the farm implement and calling it every filthy name he knew when he heard the screen door open on the back porch. Althea stood there with his tray. He straightened to look at her and realized with a sense of hopelessness that just to see her lightened his heart. He’d missed her yesterday. She had a way of making him feel better about himself. A smart, sensible woman, she had demanded a lot from him since he got here—his best work—more often than not, he’d been able to deliver his best. And she had never once judged him. When the time came to leave . . .
She was as tidy as always, with every hair in place, and her lavender dress was crisp with starch. But even from here he could see that her shoulders drooped a bit and her pretty face was drawn.
“I brought you a big breakfast since I wasn’t able to fix you much yesterday,” she said, lifting the tray as if to show him. She put it down on a little table on the porch beside the rocker. “I’m sorry about—” She broke off awkwardly, then turned to go back inside. He wanted to tell her to stop apologizing. She was always apologizing, and for things that weren’t her fault. “Well, I’d better get back to my chores.”
No, don’t leave. Please, not yet— He dropped the oil can and took a couple of running steps toward her. “Allie, wait.”
She paused with her hand on the door pull.
He pushed aside the warnings he’d given himself yesterday. He just wanted to spend a minute or two with her, and the plan that Olivia had devised would do the trick. “I want to show you something. A surprise.”
A shadow of distrust crossed her face. “A surprise?”
Jeff wiped his hands on the seat of his pants and closed the distance between them. Hopping up the steps, he touched her arm. “Yeah, something I found the other day. I guarantee you’ll like it. Come on.” Lightly, he tugged her sleeve.
“But you should eat this food while it’s hot.”
He glanced down at wha
t looked like a pound of bacon and four fried eggs, and felt his stomach rumble appreciatively. He could put it off a little while, though, for the chance to smell her hair again, to stand close to her. “It looks like a real good breakfast. I promise it’ll only take a minute. Then I’ll come right back and eat.”
She looked at the kitchen behind her, as if searching for watchful eyes. “Well, I guess . . . ” she replied, and released the door, letting him pull her across the porch to the steps.
He grinned at her. He felt a little silly about what he meant to say next. It seemed childish to make such a fuss about something as ordinary as a bird’s nest. Only to Allie, it wouldn’t seem ordinary, and for reasons he didn’t want to examine too closely, he wanted to make the moment as special as possible for her. He suspected there had very little foolishness, or joy, in Althea Ford’s life. “Great! Come on—” Then he remembered Olivia’s advice. “But close your eyes.”
“What?”
“Yeah, close ’em.”
She folded her arms and pulled back. “Jefferson Hicks, this had better not be some kind of joke—”
“No, I swear it’s not. When I saw this thing, the first person I thought of was you.”
She smiled then, and almost looked pleased. “All right.” She closed her eyes.
Putting his hands on her waist, he walked behind her to guide her slowly across the yard and over the path of grass that had been flattened by use. He was ashamed to find himself bending his head just slightly to catch the scent of her hair. She smelled faintly of lavender, and a sudden, sharp hunger made him wonder how that silken spot behind her ear might taste if he were to press his lips to her flesh there. He was also acutely aware of the slender waist he held and the way her hips moved under the heels of his hands. He resisted an almost overpowering urge to stop her in her tracks, forget the bird’s nest, and gather her into his arms. He took a breath and forced a casual note into his voice. “No peeking, now.”
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