Not knowing how to proceed, he’d opted for the easy way around the predicament. He was avoiding her.
At first, he’d harbored hope that their confrontation would discourage her from working with Delia. But it didn’t. He’d barely had time to duck behind the chicken coop the next morning when Miss Richards arrived to collect his sister for their walk. Every morning since, he’d made a point to get out of bed thirty minutes early to ensure he was safely inside the livery walls before she emerged from her place across the street.
Not that he didn’t still keep tabs on her. He had Delia to consider, after all. And it was amazingly easy to stay abreast of Miss Richards’s activities, thanks to Danny. According to the kid, she’d started giving Tessa sewing lessons. At first, J.T. hadn’t been too thrilled about the arrangement. The last thing Coventry needed was another fancy seamstress. But then he figured the girl needed to learn how to sew if she planned to take care of a family of her own one day, and as much as he hated to admit it, Miss Richards knew a thing or two about pushing a needle through cloth. If Louisa didn’t have the time or energy to train the child, Miss Richards was a logical second choice.
So now, whenever Danny showed up to muck stalls, J.T. engaged him in conversation. He’d learned all kinds of fascinating tidbits. For instance, the mystery beverage that Miss Richards drank every morning with Ezra Culpepper was cocoa. She apparently had a strong hankering for the stuff. Then there was the small matter of her still not having chairs. She did have her new sign, though, and to hear Danny tell the tale, she’d climbed out her upstairs window to hold the thing steady while the blacksmith nailed it to the support boards on her roof. Fool, stubborn woman. Didn’t she know prancing around on a roof two stories above the ground was a good way to break her pretty neck? Though he didn’t want her to operate her business in this town, he didn’t want her dying here, either.
Between his own observations and what he could glean from both Danny and Delia, J.T. was as confused as ever about Hannah Richards. The woman designed gowns for a wealthy clientele while at the same time taking a poor laundress’s daughter under her wing. She even found a way to get around Louisa’s pride. Two days ago at church, Tessa and Mollie showed up in new dresses cleverly pieced together from smaller scraps of material, like a patchwork quilt. Tessa bragged to everyone who would listen that she had made them herself, which explained why Louisa didn’t consider them charity. Tessa’s tiny foot might have pumped the pedal, but J.T. had no doubt whose expert hands had guided the fabric through the machine.
J.T. stamped his feet to knock the mud off his boots before trudging through the wagon shed to his office. Judging by her profession, Miss Richards should be a vain, shallow creature, and therefore easy for him to dismiss. Unfortunately, all evidence indicated she was kind, hardworking, and compassionate. He didn’t know what to do with that. Especially since she obviously intended to keep her shop open. A woman of true spiritual integrity would never knowingly offer temptation to others. So what did that make her? Sinner or saint?
A shadow bounced across his desk. “Mornin’, J.T.”
Tom flapped his arm in a greeting much too energetic for this early in the morning. And his lopsided grin only made J.T. grit his teeth.
“I saw Miss Richards and Cordelia playing with some more of those funny toys when I passed your place. You think she’d let me try them things if I asked ’er?”
J.T. ran a hand over his face, weary of the battle raging inside him. “I don’t know, Tom. I don’t really talk to Miss Richards much these days.”
“Why’s that? She’s nice.”
Biting back a groan, J.T. got up and clapped Tom on the shoulder as he wedged past him, needing to escape the kid’s black-and-white simplicity. Things were either fun or work. People were either nice or mean. No need to look deeper, to bust a blood vessel trying to guess motives or predict spiritual repercussions.
A quizzical frown stretched Tom’s mouth back at one corner as he turned to follow J.T. “I thought we was supposed to be lookin’ out for her since she don’t have no menfolk. Ain’t that kinda hard to do if ya don’t talk to her?”
J.T. pulled his hat down over his eyes as he made his way to the livery door, wishing he could shut out the kid’s words as easily. “Miss Richards seems to manage just fine without us. She’s a capable woman.” And beautiful, and fiery, and good-hearted—and a dressmaker. Why did she have to be a dressmaker? J.T. shoved a toothpick between his teeth and bit down until his jaw ached.
“Don’t worry about her, kid. I’m keeping an eye on her even if I’m not jawin’ with her constantly. She’s getting along all right.”
But was she? All he really knew was that she showed up for work every day. Work and her morning walks with Delia. And what exactly were those toys Tom was talking about? Maybe it was time to stop avoiding the contradictory Miss Richards. After all, the only way to understand something was to study it, and he aimed to figure this woman out.
“The stock is out in the corral,” he called to Tom as he strode toward the street. “Start mucking the stalls. I’ll be back in a bit.” He rounded the corner toward home, determination fueling his steps.
J.T. found the dressmaker with his sister under the large oak tree behind his house. The morning mist had dampened the women’s hair flat to their heads, but neither seemed to mind. Their cheeks, rosy from their exertions in the cool air, lent them a healthy glow, and he grudgingly admitted that he hadn’t seen Delia look so exuberant since her days of playing tag around the schoolhouse.
“You’re doing great, Cordelia. Keep going. Ten more. You can do it.”
Something akin to elongated wooden pears hung from Miss Richards’s hands. She swung the clubs in a giant L shape. The right arm rose straight in the air above her head and the left pitched out to the side at a perpendicular angle. Then the positions reversed. She alternated arms back and forth as she counted off the repetitions. Miss Richards held her arms stiff and strong. Delia’s bent a bit at the elbows and didn’t quite reach the same height. Her breaths came in heavy puffs as she followed Miss Richards’s example, but she didn’t quit, and even though she looked ridiculous, J.T. couldn’t help but be proud of her tenacity.
“Good. Now lower the clubs to your sides and do the lower pendulums.”
Delia moaned. “My arms are burning.”
Miss Richards would not be deterred. “That’s good. Your muscles are working. We’ll do ten of these and then take a break.”
“All right.”
This time instead of making the L above their heads, they formed it in front. The right arm lifted sideways at the shoulder while the left poked straight out in front. Then the alternations began again. They looked like a pair of trainmen flagging down a locomotive.
“. . . seven . . . eight . . . nine . . . ten. You did it!” Miss Richards exclaimed. “Go ahead and rest for a minute and then bring the rings over. We’ll finish up with those today.”
Delia dragged herself up onto the back porch and collapsed into the rocker that sat under the eaves. Her arms draped over the sides, dangling toward the floor. J.T. bit back a grin. The girl was exhausted. Miss Richards, on the other hand, looked as fresh as a yearling colt, antsy and ready to go. While Delia rested, she continued on with a more complicated routine. Lunging with her legs, she twirled the clubs in large, full-bodied circles. The graceful arcs accentuated her flexibility and athleticism, holding J.T.’s gaze captive. Her plain blue dress, dampened by the moist air, clung to her form as she stretched. J.T. tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry.
Tearing his attention away from her shape, he focused instead on the silly clubs she was flinging around. He cleared his throat and stepped out of the shade of the house.
“Are you going to start juggling those things next?” Frustrated by his physical reaction to the woman who caused him no end of mental angst, his voice came out with more derision than he’d intended. The little lady jumped and emitted a quiet squeak, much like she ha
d the day she’d fallen through the rotted staircase and into his arms.
That was not a memory he needed at the moment.
He was having a hard enough time clearing his mind of inappropriate thoughts without remembering how good she’d felt bundled up against his chest.
“Goodness, J.T. You scared me half to death sneaking up on us like that,” Delia said from her now fully upright position in the rocker. “What are you doing here? You never come home before noon.”
“I decided to see for myself what kind of secret activities the two of you engage in every morning.” J.T. spared a brief glance for his sister before striding toward the tree and the bristling woman beneath its branches. “Had I known you were entertaining the notion of joining a circus act, Miss Richards, I would have offered to wire P.T. Barnum on your behalf.”
“Circus act?” Her lips thinned into a straight line, and she waved the wooden clubs at him.
J.T. halted a few steps away. Perhaps he shouldn’t have provoked her while she was still gripping the clubs. They looked less like juggling toys and more like weapons the closer he came.
“I’ll have you know, all the implements I use are scientifically researched and proven effective for improving flexibility and strength. Dr. Dio Lewis and Simon Kehoe both published books extolling the benefits of proper and repeated use of the Indian club. In fact, in Mr. Kehoe’s volume, he included sketches of several gentlemen who work daily with such clubs. I can tell you their muscular physique would outmatch any man.”
The annoying woman made a point to glance at his chest and then roll her eyes away, as if she found him lacking. Him. No dandy from New York who passed time swinging some feeble little clubs in a gymnasium somewhere could compete with a man who worked hard for a living. Not on any day of the week. He’d like to see one of those fellows fork hay into a loft for an hour or plow a field of tough Texas soil under the hot sun from dawn till dusk.
And just what was she doing gawking at pictures of men’s physiques, anyhow? J.T. shrugged his shoulders and flexed his muscles under his coat.
“You really shouldn’t criticize something you know so little about . . . Jericho.”
He blinked and narrowed his gaze. No one had dared call him by that name in years. Not since his mother had left. His pa’s belt had kept him from back-talking when his mama insisted on using the name despite his protests, and he’d even borne up under his teacher using it. But not one of his peers dared go against his wishes. He’d pummeled the last fellow who’d tried—a twelve-year-old kid who didn’t think a nine-year-old could thrash him. The smart aleck hadn’t reckoned on how much J.T. hated the name. What boy wanted to be named after a city that crumbled when a bunch of nomads walked around it? Not exactly an image of strength or fortitude.
Besides, she liked it. If Mama could abandon him, he could sure as shooting abandon the name she tried to saddle him with.
J.T. silently worked his jaw back and forth. There was only one person who would’ve dared tell this woman his given name, and she was stifling giggles on the porch behind him. Choosing to ignore his sister for now, J.T. faced the impudent woman whose eyes issued challenges his pride could not ignore.
He prowled forward, jaw clenched so hard his facial muscles ticked. “The name’s J.T.”
“No,” she said, tapping her chin as if pondering some great mystery. “Those are initials. Your name is Jericho.”
Wiggling his fingers to keep them from curling into fists, J.T. reminded himself that she was a woman. He couldn’t deal with her the same way he had the boy in the schoolyard.
“Are you purposely trying to rile me?” His voice rumbled with menace, warning her against such a dangerous path.
An all-too-innocent smile stretched across her face. “Why, yes. Yes, I am. Is it working?”
CHAPTER 17
Hannah struggled to keep her expression bland. The incredulous look on Jericho’s face nearly made her laugh out loud. He stood stock-still . . . and blinked five times. She counted.
Then his lips twitched. A smile? Surely not. He quickly covered the bottom half of his face with his hand, ostensibly to rub his jaw, but Hannah believed he was hiding something. Perhaps she had finally managed to make a crack in that wall of stoic arrogance he used as a shield. She could hope.
“Care to try them for yourself?” Hannah held out her clubs to him. “Give me thirty minutes, and I bet I can change your opinion of their worth.”
“You’re on.” He rolled up the sleeves of his shirt past his elbows, exposing muscular forearms, and then took the clubs from her. Arms wide, he reached back in a stretch that drew his shirt tight across his chest.
The men pictured in Mr. Kehoe’s book suddenly seemed less impressive.
Jericho continued to stretch and Hannah continued to watch until she happened to meet his eye. The look on his face clearly said he’d noticed her noticing. She jerked her attention away and bent to retrieve Cordelia’s clubs.
“Usually men use longer and slightly heavier Indian clubs,” she said, trying to cover her embarrassment by beginning her instruction, “but you’ll have to make do with mine. I’ll demonstrate with these.”
Hannah showed him the proper way to grip the handles and summarized the different positions. “Now, in order to make this a fair trial, you must put true effort into the exercises. Keep your arms straight, and make your movements fast and strong.”
“I’ll give you a fair test . . . Hannah.”
An absurd thrill shot through her at the sound of her given name on his lips. The mockery in his tone only hurt a little. But she’d brought that on herself. What she had to do now was prove him wrong. And who knew—maybe if he realized he could be wrong about the value of exercise equipment, he might be willing to consider that his view on her profession could benefit from a slight adjustment. Why not wish for the whole pie instead of only a slice?
“All right, Jericho, follow my lead.”
He scowled at her use of his name, which only made her want to use it as often as possible. She was done tiptoeing around him. He never smiled anyway, at least not at her, so pandering to his ego would serve no purpose. Perhaps he was one of those misguided creatures who actually preferred vinegar to honey. Well, let someone else try to sweeten him up. She’d take a different tack. Jericho Tucker stood in the way of her finding full acceptance in this community, and she planned to fight her way past him. Starting now.
Hannah swung her clubs into first position, skipping the beginner exercises she’d been using with Cordelia. Jericho needed a more exacting routine. He would expect it to be easy, and it would probably seem so at first, but she planned to double the number of repetitions and increase the level of difficulty without giving him the breaks she allowed Cordelia. It didn’t matter that she’d already completed most of her own routine before he arrived. She’d outlast him. Her muscles were used to the movements; his weren’t. The determined set of his jaw assured her he’d not quit, but if she could get him to sweat, even a little, that would be victory enough.
After completing all the perpendicular sets, Hannah moved on to arm presses and lunging circles. Jericho stayed right with her. The scoundrel wasn’t even breathing hard.
Her arms began to tremble slightly. She locked her elbows into place to hide the tremors and pushed harder, unwilling to let him best her.
“This next move is complicated,” Hannah told him, careful to regulate her exhalations so as not to huff at all. “Think you can handle it?”
“I can handle anything you want to throw at me, sweetheart.” He cocked a brow at her.
Hannah cocked one right back. He’d not fluster her with his swagger and mock endearments.
“You’ll like this one, Jericho,” she said. “It’s named the Moulinet, or broadsword exercise. Very manly.”
“Stop calling me that.”
Hannah couldn’t hide her grin this time. “What . . . manly?”
His scowl darkened.
“Oh, you mean
Jericho.” She shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. I like it too much. Jericho—a city so sure of itself and its strength that it couldn’t acknowledge the possibility that someone else might succeed with methods that appeared foolish and wrong in its eyes. Fits you rather well.”
Before he could comment, she began the next movement. It required concentration and a loose wrist to twirl the clubs before tucking in the elbows and circling the arms around in a large arc. Jericho seemed to have a little more difficulty mastering the precision of this one, and Hannah inwardly gloated.
“It’s been thirty minutes,” Cordelia called out from her vantage point on the back porch. “Why don’t you work the rings with him before the two of you quit?”
Hannah winced. She’d been so caught up in proving her point to Jericho, she’d completely forgotten about Cordelia. Her friend didn’t seem to mind, though. She leaned forward in her chair, as if she had a front-row seat at an outdoor theatrical.
“Your brother only agreed to thirty minutes,” Hannah called back as she brought her spinning clubs to rest. “I wouldn’t want to tire him so much that he can’t perform his duties at the livery today.”
“No chance of that,” Jericho grumbled.
Hannah wasn’t sure that working the rings with him was a good idea. The apparatus required that two people grip them at the same time, often bringing the exercisers into close proximity. Being near this man tended to have an addling effect on her brain, and she needed all her wits about her to battle him successfully.
“I won’t ask you to do the rings,” she said, dropping her clubs into the box of equipment at the base of the tree. “You’ve sacrificed enough time already. I’m sure you’ll agree, though, that these instruments are not mere toys.”
He came up behind her, reached over her shoulder, and dropped his own clubs in the box. Was that faint musky odor . . . perspiration? Triumph welled in her. Then his arm brushed against hers. Triumph fled, replaced by a wobbly-kneed feeling that rattled her nerves. She stiffened and demanded that her body cease its traitorous behavior, but her pulse ignored her and continued with its giddy little dance.