by Pamela Morsi
"I've invited Muna and Maloof to go with us," Cessy said. "Two couples together is always fun."
"Always," Tom agreed with as much warmth as he could manage.
"Did you have a picnic spot in mind?" Muna asked him. Her tone suggested that she was not about to approve of his answer.
"No," Tom lied admirably. "A place by the river, I'd thought, with lots of tall trees and cool shade."
Cessy nodded. "I know just the place," she said. "I discovered it myself, and it is perfect for a July picnic."
Tom reached over to take her hand in his own. "Any place will be perfect as long as I am with you, Miss Calhoun," he said, softly.
To his surprise, Cessy laughed in his face. He glanced toward Muna and caught her rolling her eyes. Had he overplayed his hand? The young woman and her best friend were close as sisters, Maloof had told him. Would one sister advise against a suitor that she didn't trust?
"I told you he was dangerous," Cessy said, attempting to make a joke out of his compliment.
"Soft words and secret meetings." Muna tutted in disapproval. "I don't know how they do things back East, but here, Mr. Crane, a lady's reputation could be in jeopardy."
Tom had no reply to that. Muna Nafee was a threat, he decided. She had Cessy's ear. He could only hope that he had Cessy's loyalty.
With sophisticated ease, he changed the subject.
"I need to exchange the rig I've hired," he said. "It's a two-seater."
"Oh, we can just take the surrey," Cessy told. "It's very sturdy and my team is easy to handle."
Tom smiled pleasantly, thinking unpleasantly of the money he'd shelled out for the rented vehicle.
"Then all else required for this picnic is food," he said. "I trust you ladies have taken care of that."
"Overwhelmingly," Cessy assured him. "My cook has made up a basket large enough to feed all your Rough Riders, and Muna's mother has sent a veritable Syrian feast for us."
"Then shall we proceed to our picnic, Miss Calhoun."
Giggling, Cessy rose to her feet and accepted his arm. Laughing and exuberant, Tom and Cessy were a sharp contrast to the other couple. Muna still appeared suspicious and uneasy. And the peddler was keeping whatever thoughts he had to himself. The two couples made their way back through the house toward the porte cochere.
As if everything had been settled perfectly before his arrival, Tom found his own expensive rig moved aside and the striped-awning surrey hitched to a sleek, smoke-gray pair.
"I would be happy to return your rig to the livery, Mr. Crane," Howard offered.
Tom wished he could accept. He wanted his money back, but he'd hired the team as Tom Walker. He couldn't allow Miss Calhoun's employee to return them for Gerald Crane.
"Please don't concern yourself," Tom told him, feigning expansiveness.
With a good deal of feminine laughter, the baskets were loaded up and Tom found himself driving with Cessy at his side. She looked downright attractive, he thought, in a dark blue serge skirt and crisp linen blouse. Her high collar was modestly pinned with a carved ivory cameo. Her wide-brimmed straw hat was trimmed with only the thinnest braid of pink and blue ribbons. He smiled across at her, rapidly trying to reformulate his plan for the day. Obviously he had miscalculated. He'd thought her so enamored that she could be easily lured out alone. He must try never to underestimate her intelligence again.
Cessy responded jovially to a teasing comment from Muna. The young women apparently intended to chatter among themselves, ignoring their escorts. Tom was not about to let that happen.
He leaned close to Cessy, whispering so that only she would hear.
"I suppose it was very dastardly of me to try to get you alone, Miss Calhoun."
Cessy blushed in that way that he found so appealing. The young lady was incapable of coyness or deception.
"I ... I thought that we . . ."
He grasped her hand in his own and squeezed it lovingly. "I know," he assured her in a whisper. "I have been rushing your fences. It is very good, perhaps that you force us to step back a bit."
"Oh Gerald, I didn't mean—" she began.
He hushed her with a look in the direction of the silent couple in the seat behind them. And then he smiled at her, warmly.
"Just a fun picnic for four," he said. "As long as I am by your side, I will be content."
She laughed.
He would take it slow and easy today, he decided. If an opportunity for a more intimate situation presented itself, he would take it. But he wouldn't press her now. He'd let her make the next move.
The drive out of town was pleasant. Cessy seemed quite familiar with the local roads and in her no nonsense way directed him away from the thoroughfares most consistently used by the trucks and wagons on their way to the oil fields.
The mid-July sun beat down on the deeply rutted, red dirt road before them. The prairie grass on either side of the road was so pale a green that it bordered on yellow, dotted here and there with purple paintbrush or dandelions. The rattling wheels of the surrey left dusty clouds in their wake as they drove.
The roads were familiar to Tom and became more so as they traveled. As each mile passed he became increasingly uncomfortable with the proximity of the Indian School. He couldn't quite shake his anxiety. Mentally he harangued himself. Did he think that Reverend McAfee was still looking for him after eight years? Was the old man going to run out to the road, grab him by the ear, and drag him back to that livery stable for the rest of his life? It was a foolish fear and he was foolish to waste a moment of his afternoon with such concern. McAfee was probably long dead and the school a splintery ruin filled with the ghosts of unhappy little orphan boys.
"Take this turn to the west up here," Cessy directed. "It looks like little more than a wagon track, but it's quite passable."
Tom was jolted. He swallowed his surprise and followed the road she'd indicated. He couldn't quite believe it, but he knew that Cessy was directing him down the little sparsely traveled path that led to the mouth of Shemmy Creek. She knew his secret place.
"Where on earth are we headed?" he heard Muna ask from the back.
"It's a beautiful place I found," Cessy answered. "There is a little creek over there along that tree line," she said, indicating the woods just ahead. "There is hardly any water in it at all, but it's wonderfully cool and very shady. I thought it would make a marvelous picnic spot."
"We trust your judgment in the matter completely," Tom assured her. "But how in the world did you ever find it?"
"I'm out this way quite a lot," she told him. "At least I usually am. Lately I . . ."
"Lately she's been spending too much time thinking about a certain young man," Muna finished for her.
Cessy appeared genuinely embarrassed by her friend's tone.
Tom decided to make her friend's ill-disguised displeasure work in his favor. He feigned comic surprise.
"A young man? So I have competition for your interest, Miss Calhoun? I am crushed."
She smiled at him as if to say that he needn't worry.
Tom followed her directions, although he didn't need them. He began to feel better. He was getting to take her to his special place and the quiet, apparently uninteresting couple with them might not prove to be as much a deterrent as a catalyst.
There were many sighs of appreciation and words of congratulation on Cessy's choice of location. Tom hobbled the horses in a shady spot with easy access to both water and the tall grass along the edges of the stream.
As Maloof watched, Cessy directed Muna to sweep off the wide rock ledge that overlooked the river and lay out the tablecloth upon it.
Tom joined them as they began to unpack the food baskets. He and Maloof were ordered to take their places and allowed themselves to be served up a picnic lunch fit for royalty.
"The amazing thing about this place is that it's so cool," Cessy told him. "It's such a tiny little stream, and with all these trees and cattails there is barely a breeze, still it's in
ordinately cool even in the middle of July."
"It's the underground spring," Tom said. "That water is coming from so deep down that it cools the whole area.
"What?"
Cessy was staring at him.
He hesitated only a fraction of a second. One could be thoughtful when telling the truth, but lies were most convincing when presented quickly and concisely.
"I think that it must be an underground spring," he said. "There is a place much like this upon my family's country estate in Connecticut. A virtual river of very cool water runs underneath it and keeps the temperature moderate all summer long."
"I didn't know your family had an estate in Connecticut," Cessy said.
"Oh, it is Grandmama's place," he answered. "My cousins and I used to wander the grounds like gypsies when we were boys."
"Is this the grandmama that married the gondolier?"
"Ah, no . . . no, this is the other one. What is this wonderful delicacy?" he turned to ask Muna.
"It's simply a cabbage roll," she answered.
"We call it maashi," the young peddler piped in. Tom had thought he wasn't listening to the conversation. "It is my most favorite and this very good."
"It is wonderful," Tom agreed. "Maloof, you are a lucky fellow to find a beautiful woman who can also cook."
"It is my mother who cooks so well," Muna told him, unwilling to accept the compliment. "And how one looks is simply a quirk of nature and nothing in which a person can take pride."
Deliberately he relaxed his shoulders and plastered a wide, winning grin across his mouth.
"How right you are," he agreed, turning his full attention upon the woman who was apparently out to discredit him. "Our appearance, fine or ill, is a happenstance. But thankfully the eyes heaven gives to a man or a woman see with love, less critically perhaps, but more clearly for all that."
He felt Cessy's hand slip into his own and turned to look at her. His smile was gone now, his expression soft and serious.
Her eyes were wide with wonder.
"That's what I thought," she told him. "It's exactly what I thought the night that we met."
Their gazes held for a long moment. Tom felt almost frightened, almost desperate as he looked into her face. But he knew that it was something that he'd never felt before and something that he was not ready to confront today.
He glanced away first, regarding his plate and making a hasty comment about the food.
"You have a good appetite," Cessy commented. "That is your second cabbage roll and I haven't noticed you ignoring the cook's fried chicken."
Tom delicately wiped his mouth with the snowy white napkin in that way that was so naturally elegant for Gerald.
"A man who has gone without meals learns to appreciate the wonders of food when it is presented to him."
The words had barely passed his lips when he was desperate to call them back. Gerald had never known hunger or want. It was Tom whose world was always at risk.
A strange expression came across Cessy's face and for a moment he thought that she'd found him out. Then she reached over and took his hand.
"You needn't try to shelter me from the unpleasantness of your military service," she told him. "I want to share your life, Gerald, all of it."
Their eyes met and the look that passed between them was so intense, Tom felt as if all the air had been stolen from his lungs. This had to stop, this strange heart stopping power she had over him. It simply had to stop. If he didn't win her soon, he'd confess all and throw himself upon her mercy.
"More bread, Mr. Crane?" Muna's voice interrupted.
He glanced at the other young woman, grateful for the fateful reprieve. "No thank you, Miss Nafee, I believe I could not eat another bite."
"Then you must be ready for some dessert," she continued. "Prin's cook makes the best pies in the oil field and my mother has packed some pastries like nothing you have ever tasted before."
"It sounds tempting, but perhaps later," he said. "Truly, I must take a bit of exercise before I attempt to enjoy any more of this fine cooking."
He rose to his feet and turned toward Princess, offering his hand.
"Shall we explore this place, Cessy?" he asked. "To see if I am correct about the underground spring."
Immediately she placed her palm in his own and would have walked away without another word if Muna's voice hadn't injected a moment of reality.
"Don't worry about this, Prin," Muna said, gesturing toward the empty plates and the remainders of their repast.
The woman on his arm hesitated. It was she, of course, who was the hostess of the picnic. She should be the one to take care of the clean up. Or at least suggest that it be done.
"Oh no, Muna, I can't leave all this mess for you," Cessy said guiltily.
Tom could wait no longer to be alone with her and determinedly wrapped her arm more firmly around his own. "Maloof will help her," he said, grinning at the peddler who looked up at him in surprise. "It will give you a fine opportunity to show your betrothed what a helpful husband you hope to be. And with us out of the way, it will give you a good chance to steal a kiss."
His words brought a little "Oh" of shock from Muna, whose cheeks immediately sported two bright red spots.
Maloof seemed as embarrassed as she was. "Later I brew coffee for you, Turkish coffee with the sweets," he said. "You go with Tom, friend of Muna. I have no sisters, I know to help Muna. I am very helpful."
"Good, good," Tom said and led Cessy away from the picnic spot and into the cool shade of the woods. "I'm going to try to steal a kiss myself."
With Princess and Gerald off in the woods, Muna found herself sitting in silence with Maloof on the opposite corners of the tablecloth. She gave him a surreptitious glance from beneath her lashes. His brow was furrowed and he looked concerned. Muna assumed that all the talk of kissing had embarrassed him as much as her.
Maloof had never made any attempt to actually kiss her. But then he didn't need to. They would be married soon. There was no need to spark and spoon a woman who was already committed to be your wife.
He caught her looking at him and smiled.
Muna felt a strange fluttering in her heart.
"Tom is very brave man," he said.
"Tom?"
He gestured toward the woods. "Tom, the man friend of Miss Princess."
"Gerald," Muna told him. "His name is Gerald."
He shrugged as if he couldn't accept her words but was unwilling to argue them.
"He is brave man," Maloof repeated.
"Why would you say that?" she asked him.
"He goes to steal kiss," he said.
Muna blushed. "That's just an expression," she assured him.
"Ah . . . good," Maloof replied as if a huge worry had been taken from his shoulders. "I like him and would not want him in pain or prison."
"Pain or prison? What on earth are you talking about?" Muna asked him.
"Your father has explained to me," he said.
"Explained what?"
"The customs of America," he answered. "It is different here for couple unwed and has much danger."
"Danger?" she asked, puzzled at his words.
He looked at her for a long moment and then, to her surprise, moved closer to her side of the tablecloth.
"I am not afraid of danger," he assured her, his voice surprisingly low and strangely seductive.
Muna felt gooseflesh raise upon her skin.
"I would risk much," he whispered as he eased himself next to her. "I would endure much. The danger is much, but I face it bravely."
Her heart was pounding now, his nearness overwhelming. He leaned slightly toward her, supporting his body with one tanned brown hand only inches from her own. He was not touching her anywhere, but the warmth of him, the scent of him, embraced her as certainly as any arms ever would.
Muna swallowed, determined to keep her head. "Romance is a powerful emotion," she admitted, "and is certainly the risk of a painful broken heart
. But I have already agreed to wed you, sir. You needn't fear I shall reject your affection."
Maloof seemed momentarily taken aback. His brow furrowed in confusion.
"I do not fear you," he said. "I fear police."
"The police?" Muna sat up straight and looked him squarely in the eye, befuddled. "What on earth do the police have to do with it?"
Maloof tilted his head slightly, considering her words.
"It no good to go prison in my new country," he said.
"What on earth are you thinking to do that could send you to prison?" she asked.
"Kiss you," he replied.
"You think that if you kiss me you will go to prison?"
Maloof nodded. "Your father explain," he told her. "In America it is much free, not like Tarablos. In Tarablos man and bride meet with parents, sit with parents, get married."
Muna nodded. "Here we don't have arranged marriages," she agreed. "But what has that to do with prison?"
"In America young man and woman have much time alone, yes?"
Muna agreed.
"There is much privacy, much time for . . . kisses but family no worry."
"Well, I think sometimes they do," she said.
"Your father say to me, 'In America law is clear. Touch bride before wedding and go to jail, face torture.'"
"What?"
"Go to jail, face torture," he repeated. "Steal a kiss very dangerous."
Muna stared at him in disbelief for a long moment and then burst into laughter.
"Baba told you that if you try to ... to touch me you'll go to jail and be tortured?"
Maloof looked puzzled.
"It is not true?"
"No, of course it's not true," Muna told him. "Couples in America touch and kiss and . . . well they touch and kiss."
Maloof was incredulous. "Your father lies to me!"
"Yes, yes, I'm afraid he did lie to you," she said.
"He lies to me." Maloof shook his head with disbelief. "He lies to me." After a long thoughtful sigh, a trace of a smile niggled at the corner of his mouth and then pulled into a full-fledged grin. "There is much to respect about your father," he said.