She did it again. She smiled at him as though he were some sort of helpless cripple who needed to be humored. Or a god. She finished tying his bandage, once more honoring his arm with a decorative bow.
“Why, Charley, you know good and well Aunt Ivy and I will be happy to have you workin’ for us as soon as your arm heals up. But I’ll bet your poor old arm just hurt like the dickens yesterday after you and your band got through playin’.”
She gave him an arch look. He would have denied her assertion except he discovered himself suddenly victimized by an attack of honesty. His arm had hurt like the dickens yesterday after rehearsal. Still did, in fact. Well, hell.
Addie, of course, needed nobody else when it came to carrying on a conversation. She didn’t even notice he hadn’t responded and said, “And Lester is in the house right this minute helpin’ Aunt Ivy organize preserves in the cellar. There’s a lot of preservin’ to do around here in the springtime what with the beans and okra and peppers practically bustin’ down the bushes, you know.”
Charley’s head, which had been bent as he tried to keep his gaze on the floorboards of the porch instead of on Addie’s perky bosom, snapped up. “He is?” Good Lord, poor Lester. Charley wondered if Lester’s old heart could take as much feminine stimulation as it was sure to be getting from Ivy.
“Why, he surely is. There now. You’re all set.” She gave her bow a final twitch, stepped back and grinned at Charley as though he were a prize boar she’d just groomed for the county fair. If they had fairs here. If they had counties.
He had to get away from her. If he stayed around here all day, listening to her chatter and watching her unbound bosom bounce up and down as she went about her chores, Charley knew he’d lose his mind. Besides, he felt honor bound to rescue Lester.
“Well, ma’am, if you won’t let me do any carpentry work today, maybe I could run some errands for you and your aunt in town.”
“Why, what a sweet offer, Charley.” Addie beamed at him as she bent over to pick up her nursing basket. Her top gaped open again.
With another strangled noise, Charley wrenched his gaze away from her bosom, the full glory of which was only barely concealed by the lacy top of her camisole. He yanked his shirt off the back of his chair, stuffed his arms into the sleeves, and began to button it up. His hands shook.
“I do declare, that shirt looks almost good as new now, doesn’t it, Charley?”
He winced when he discovered Addie beside him, her helpful little fingers stroking the mended spot on his shirt. The shirt, he noticed, had been not merely mended, but laundered and ironed as well. Sniffing suspiciously, he realized she’d also managed to make it smell sweet; like lavender. Marvelous. He’d always wanted to smell like a bouquet of flowers. He wondered if it would be unmanly to cry.
“So you’ll let me go to town?” He frowned when he heard himself. He sounded like a kid asking his mother for a treat.
“Oh, pooh, don’t be silly, Charley. You need to rest, and I don’t want you sassin’ me about it, either.”
Well, shoot.
Then she almost robbed him of breath when she winked and said, “But I reckon I’d better run on in and rescue your friend Lester and ask him to run an errand or two for me. I ‘spect he’s about to split in half from havin’ to be around Aunt Ivy this long. He’s right shy around ladies, isn’t he?”
Addie skipped off into the house again without waiting for Charley to answer. Which was just as well, since his throat had taken to working convulsively and he didn’t think he could form words.
When they finally came, they were profane. “Son of a bitch.”
Charley stared at the door, feeling confounded. Miss Adelaide Blewitt understood poor old Lester’s fear of females. Well, son of a bitch. He hadn’t credited her with so much sense, although he wasn’t sure why. Heaven alone knew, she could do everything else in the world.
Addie proved to be as good as her word, rescuing Lester from Ivy’s clutches and asking him to ride into town and fetch a sack of flour. Lester looked as though he might pass out from relief. Charley’d never seen him saddle Prunella so fast.
He watched Lester ride off and felt as though his last hope had just deserted him. He felt almost as low as he’d felt when he and the boys’d had to leave America City. And that was pretty blasted low.
Then he figured, Oh, what the hell. As long as music and honor had been denied him and he’d committed himself to a life of crime, he might just as well start acting like the louse he was supposed to be. While Addie and Ivy were occupied in the kitchen, Charley hightailed himself upstairs, determined to search around for likely spots to hide a fortune in rubies.
He hated himself.
The blasted jewels weren’t in Ivy’s bedroom. Charley turned over everything in it; even lifted the pictures off the walls. Nothing. Not even a dust ball resided in Ivy’s bedroom, much less anything as large as an heirloom jewel. Nothing conflicted with the tidy female-bedroom furnishings in Ivy’s room.
Charley armed himself with a deep breath and a stout lecture before he tackled Addie’s bedroom. The thought of rifling through Addie’s things made unwanted images dance into his brain, and another part of his anatomy stand to attention and salute smartly. He told them both to cease their ridiculous activities immediately. Of course, they did no such thing.
When Charley fingered Addie’s sturdy cotton pantaloons adorned with their edging of serviceable cotton lace and decked with pink ribbons, he groaned. When he picked through her camisoles, also edged with cotton lace and ribbons, he recalled the buxom assets the garments were designed to hide and he moaned.
Trying and failing to harden his heart, he searched the rest of her room. It almost killed him to look under Addie’s bed; he wondered the whole time if the springs would creak if they were to—no. He felt clumsy when his big hands pawed through the few trinkets on her dresser. Picking up one particular locket, he wondered how it would look against Addie’s skin. By his reckoning, it’s chain would land the locket right between the twin ripe—no.
By the time Charley turned to the two pictures on the wall—an old photograph each of her mother and father, he supposed—he didn’t think his masculinity would survive.
He also felt like the lowest, meanest, dirtiest snake on the face of the earth. To think that he, Charles McCallum Wilde, master carpenter, brilliant cornet player, decorated soldier of the Confederacy, founding member of the America City Brass Band, the only brass band on either side to have served through the entire War—why, they’d even played at the Surrender—had been reduced to searching through ladies’ drawers—literally—for jewels to steal, was an affront to everything Charley’d ever believed in. It was difficult for him to accept that his life had come to such a pass. He felt mortified and miserably depressed.
Yet when he escaped to the barn in order to contemplate the wretched state of affairs in peace, he couldn’t decide upon a single alternative. Oh, he could undoubtedly get a job somewhere. Heaven knew, the world needed carpenters. But the boys depended on him. He was their leader, for pity’s sake; had been for ten years now. They’d sworn to stay together as a band, and they all looked to him to achieve their goal.
Individually, the boys were nothing. Together, they made a band. The best damned band Charley’d ever heard. If they never performed again, they were still the America City Brass Band, and Charley Wilde was their director. They’d joined up in sixty-one, served the 4th Georgia until they were captured at Appomattox, lost fully half of their members during the Conflict, and had vowed to remain a band, united until death.
It was sort of like a marriage. He couldn’t desert them. He wouldn’t allow himself to desert them. Yet it seemed to him that they’d set themselves on a course of action almost certain to end in disaster.
Charley sat on his band director’s hay bale, elbows on his knees, chin buried in his hands, and fretted. Shoot, the boys weren’t thieves. Neither was he. They were no danged good at it. If they kept on t
rying to rob people, they were sure to get killed. Or end up in prison.
Neither one of those scenarios appealed to Charley’s freedom-loving soul. Neither did stealing the Blewitt ladies’ rubies. But after mulling over the rotten possibilities open to him, Charley was forced to admit that one heinous theft which would set his men up in honest pursuits for the rest of their lives was more attractive than a lifetime spent being scared to death while trying to perform a job for which none of them was qualified. Or rotting in jail for the rest of their lives.
Maybe they could pay the ladies back when they were set up somewhere.
His half-hearted swipe at achieving atonement didn’t cheer him. After another minute or so of unhappy thought, he shook his head and growled, “Aw, shoot, we’ve got no choice.”
He lifted his head and looked around the barn, still feeling like pond scum. Then he sat up straighter.
Rubies. Now, if he were a ruby, where would he be? There were all sorts of intriguing possibilities right here in the barn. For example, a row of shelves containing a clutter of cans, bottles and jars looked particularly intriguing. Some of the receptacles obviously contained nails, screws and tacks; the contents of others were less transparent. Beneath the shelves it looked as though Addie’s departed father had built himself a cabinet full of drawers. Now, there was a thought indeed.
Tales he’d read as a child, full of built-in false drawer bottoms and fake drawer backs, slithered into Charley’s brain. With a swift glance around, he decided it was worth a peek, anyway. He began rummaging around in the barn.
After a half-hour or so, he’d unearthed an abundance of old worn-out metal and leather items, but no jewels. Another half-hour produced a heap full of rotted leather strapping, old broken harness pieces, a million or so rusty nails, screws, hooks, curtain rods, gewgaws, even a grappling hook, but no rubies.
“Shoot.”
Charley looked at the pile of rubble at his feet and decided he’d best tidy up. But before he did, he aimed to inspect the rest of the barn. The more he looked, even though he came up empty, the more he thought a couple of ladies living alone in an untamed territory might be apt to hide their valuables away from the house.
The Blewitt mule, Duke of Essex, eyed him in a friendly manner as he chewed his straw. Charley patted the mule’s rump and another thought struck him. He walked around the Duke, nudged him aside and peeked into everything that looked promising in his stall, even the oat bin.
Charley found absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. The only odd thing that happened during his search was that the Duke of Essex seemed to grin at him. Charley chalked it up to his own burgeoning dementia.
“Shoot.” He looked around some more.
A quartet of elderly wooden barrels squatted against another wall. It looked as though they’d done nothing but collect dust for months, if not years. Charley eyed them contemplatively.
“Well, why not?” he asked the mule, not expecting an answer. He walked to the other side of the barn and began rooting in the first barrel.
“What the hell’re you doin’ in this here barn?”
Fermin Small’s voice boomed out just as the barn’s double doors swung open and crashed against the building walls, making the entire barn shake and frightening Charley and the Duke of Essex. The mule let out a tremendous bray and glowered malevolently at the sheriff. Charley jerked away from the barrel and whirled around, wrenching his wounded arm which protested mightily.
“Son of a buck!” He glared at Fermin Small. The sheriff had drawn his gun and now pointed it at him. “What in blazes did you go and do that for, Sheriff?”
“What’re you up to in this here barn, Wilde?” Small’s squinty eyes darted back and forth, as though he expected a gang of hoodlums to pop up from the dusty barrels or from behind the hay bales.
Pressing his wounded arm and thinking fast, Charley squinted up his own eyes. “I was reorganizing the tack, as a matter of fact. Didn’t know there was a law against it, although I reckon it is a mighty suspicious thing to do.”
Small’s eyes had squinched up so much by this time, Charley could barely see them. The sheriff appeared unconvinced and snorted derisively. “A likely story.”
Charley didn’t like the way that gun looked, pointed at his stomach and all. He’d seen enough gut wounds not to want one of his own. Criminy. He’d never had a gun aimed at him before. Well, except during the war, of course, when people shot at him on a regular basis. Charley figured officially declared conflicts were exempt from rules applying to the normal course of civilized society.
But he and the boy’s had no sooner set foot in this stupid territory than he’d been aimed at twice in one week. For at least the thousandth time, he wished he’d never had to leave home. This territory was rough.
“Why don’t you ask Miss Adelaide or Miss Ivy, Sheriff Small? Just go on and ask them. I’m working for them now, for heaven’s sake.”
“Humph. I ain’t a-goin’ to go ask nobody nothin’ and leave you in this here barn doin’ what you was doin’.”
“What I was doing was my job.”
“So you says.”
“What in tarnation is going on in here? What was that awful noise?”
At Addie’s indignant question, both men jumped and turned around. Charley instinctively folded his arms across his middle, innate worry that the sheriff’s finger might jerk on the trigger propelling him. As if anything could stop a bullet, he thought unhappily.
“What in heaven’s name are you doing here, Fermin? And why did you have your gun pointed at Charley?”
Addie stood in the doorway, hands on her hips. Her face had gone pink with outrage and her glorious gray eyes flashed silver sparks. In spite of the fear still scrambling his innards, Charley couldn’t help but appreciate the picture she made. Backlit by the late morning sun, her hair made a glimmering halo, framing her head in gold. Her full lips were pulled into a frown, and her delicious bosom rose and fell with each indignant breath. She was quite a sight, little Addie Blewitt.
“This varmint was a-robbin’ yer barn, Miss Addie,” Fermin Small announced melodramatically.
Charley snorted.
Addie bellowed, “What?”
Fermin’s frown got longer.
Addie walked up to the sheriff and planted herself smack in front of him. Completely fearless, she reached out and twitched the gun out of his hand. Charley could only stare, amazed.
“If that’s not the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard in my entire life, Fermin Small, I don’t know what is.” Without so much as a by-your-leave, Addie flipped the cylinder open and dumped Fermin’s bullets out into her hand.
“Ma’am—” Fermin began.
“Don’t you ‘ma’am’ me, Fermin,” Addie interrupted without ceremony. “You’re being stupid. As usual. Now put that thing away.” Addie slapped his empty gun back into his hand.
“Now, Miss Addie—”
“And don’t you ‘Now-Miss-Addie’ me, either! Why, I reckon I’ll say who gets arrested on my property and who doesn’t, Fermin Small. Put that gun away right this minute.”
Grumbling, the sheriff stuffed his gun into his waistband. Charley breathed a sigh of relief and watched Addie. She was something, all right. He couldn’t suppress his grin of approval when she grabbed Fermin’s other long hand and slapped the bullets into it.
“And don’t you dare reload that gun until you’ve left our yard either,” she told him, as if she were lecturing a small child.
“Well, he was a-rummagin’, Miss Addie. I don’t reckon he had no call to go a-rummagin’ in your barn.” The sheriff’s voice had taken on a whiny quality. He peered unhappily at the bullets in his hand.
Addie executed a sharp turn and looked at Charley, and he shrugged helplessly.
“You wouldn’t let me do anything else, Miss Adelaide. I figured I’d just straighten up the barn some.” He gave her the smile he’d perfected back home in Georgia when he used to make the girls’ hearts pal
pitate with his cornet playing. “Hope you don’t mind, ma’am.”
He gestured toward the piles of rubbish he’d collected, and guessed he hadn’t lost his touch when Addie’s cheeks flamed from pink to scarlet.
“Why, Charley, you old silly. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Now, Miss Adelaide, I’m not used to being idle. I’m used to working hard for my living.”
He tried to ignore the sheriff’s contemptuous guffaw, but Addie didn’t. She whacked Fermin smartly on the arm and commanded him to, “Stop it!”
“I figured you wouldn’t mind if I tidied up some in here, ma’am. It’s not too hard on my arm, and it looked like it needed doing.”
“Why, Charley Wilde, if you aren’t the sweetest thing.”
Addie took his undamaged arm in her two little hands. They felt good, and Charley remembered why he’d started his ruby search today. Shoot.
Turning to Fermin, Addie said in a voice as cold as the day was warm, “You’d best be on your way, Sheriff. It’s time for honest folks to take their noonday meal. And if you don’t stop botherin’ us on our own farm, Fermin Small, Aunt Ivy and I will just be forced to take steps.”
Charley heard the sheriff grumbling behind them as Addie began to march him toward the house. He looked down at her hair, shimmering in the noonday sun, and felt a tremendous urge to pick her up and hug her. She’d rescued him. She’d rescued him! Well, for heaven’s sake. And it wasn’t the first time, either.
He grinned. She was a woman of many parts, little Addie Blewitt. “And just what steps would you have taken, Miss Adelaide, if you don’t mind my asking?”
She sparkled up at him like his own personal star, stealing his breath for a moment.
“Why, I’d just tell everybody what an idiot he’s bein’, is what, Charley.” Her smile faded, and was replaced by a scowl. “He really is an idiot, too. Why, that man’s been nothing but trouble since the day he was elected. Some bandits stole all of Mrs. Ramirez’s pigs right out from under his nose. He even opened the gate for them! Said he thought the bandits were helpin’ Mrs. Ramirez. Humph!”
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