The sound of his voice resounded in his head. So much for watching his language. In the space of a minute, he had already used half the cusswords in his vocabulary. He fell back on the bed, groaned, and angled an arm over his eyes. Damned if he couldn't give lessons on how to drive off females.
Chapter 10
Just as Zach feared, Kate had as little as possible to do with him from then on. Oh, she saw to his needs, and she was unfailingly kind. He had no complaints there. But she didn't prolong her visits to his room a second longer than was absolutely necessary.
In all fairness, he knew the scarceness of her appearances in his room probably wasn't by design. Now that Zach was better, Marcus no longer felt Kate needed his help, and he had gone back to Zach's place to oversee the hired hands. That left her with all the farm work. The few moments of leisure time she did manage to steal were spent with her daughter, which was as it should be.
Each evening Marcus came by for short visits, helping Zach to bathe when he needed it and updating him on the goings-on at his farm. Zach began to yearn for the company like a thirsting man did water. He wasn't accustomed to inactivity, and the endless, empty hours of the day nearly drove him mad. For some reason, little Miranda never came to his room anymore. Zach laid it to her age and the fact that a sick man probably wasn't very entertaining company for a four-year-old.
As though she sensed how restless he was, Kate started leaving her precious store of reading material on his bedside table each morning. As much as Zach appreciated her thoughtfulness, he had never been much of a one to read the Bible, and he didn't cotton to studying Harper's Bazaar dress patterns or leafing through last year's issue of the Montgomery Ward catalog. That left two Portland newspapers she had in her possession, and he soon got sick to death of poring over those.
He memorized every event reported in Portland on the nineteenth and twentieth of June. Copper sales were booming, but who gave a fig? After three days, he could recite the ball game scores at any given inning. He knew a trout fisherman could pick up a dozen superior quality flies at Hudson 's Gun Store for fifty cents, that the telephone number to Henry Weinhard's brewery was 72, and he drank an entire bottle of Swift's Specific in one afternoon, praying it was as miraculous a restorative tonic as the advertisements claimed. It wasn't.
Kate, convinced that he had consumed such large quantities of the remedy for its alcohol content, was none too pleased when she learned what he had done. During their discourse that evening, Zach filed away two more important facts about Kate Blakely; she was dead set against spirits of any kind, and she considered the wine he intended to produce to be sinner's swill.
Two more marks against him.
This new discovery about Kate pretty much dashed Zach's hopes that once she got to know him she might develop a fondness for him. In order for a woman to fall in love with a man despite his exterior flaws, she had to see something noble in his character. As far as Zach could tell, his only saving grace in Kate's eyes was that he had braved a den of rattlers to rescue her daughter.
Not a man to beat a dead horse, Zach accepted Kate's indifference and set his mind to regaining his strength. The problem was, his body didn't seem to respond to the messages from his brain. When he sat up on the edge of the bed, he broke out in a sweat. The one time he tried to stand, his legs folded beneath him as if they were hinged and well-oiled at the knees. He had a hell of a time dragging himself back up from the floor and into the bed, and when he managed, he was so drained he slept straight through supper and didn't awaken until the next morning.
When Miranda and Nosy appeared in his doorway one afternoon looking forlorn and bored, Zach was so glad for the company that he wished he could lasso the pair and tether them to his bedrails. Since that morning over a week ago when he and Miranda had discussed the spider, he had caught only glimpses of her. And since Nosy seemed to have become her unshakable shadow, Zach had been deprived of the dog's loyal companionship as well.
"Long time, no see," he said lightly. "I thought maybe I'd made you mad at me or something."
Miranda wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "Nope."
"Then why have you been such a stranger?" The puzzled look in her guileless brown eyes told him she had never heard that expression. "If you aren't mad, why don't you ever come see me?"
She caught her lip in her teeth and wrinkled her nose again. "I ain't s'posed to."
"Oh."
She studied him for a moment. Then her gaze shifted to his mouth. "How come do you lick dirt? Does it taste good?"
Zach blinked. "Lick dirt? What gave you that idea?"
"Ma said."
"You must have misunderstood, Miranda."
"Nope. Ma said it straight out."
"Well, she's mistaken then. I don't lick dirt."
With her hand riding Nosy's back, she stepped into the room and drew up at the foot of Zach's bed. Peering at him over his sheet-draped toes, she said, "Let me look."
"At what?"
"Your tongue."
Zach stared at her. "My tongue?"
"Yep. So's I can see if it's filthy like Ma says."
He swallowed a laugh. "Ah—so that's what she said." Feeling absurd, he slid the body part in question out between his teeth so Miranda could take a gander at it. "Is it dirty?"
She shook her head. "Not the brown kind of dirty. But it's got icky lookin' white stuff on it."
Zach felt a flush of embarrassment rising up his neck. "That's because I've been sick. Your ma works so hard that I hate to send her on extra errands. But if you'll go get me some saleratus, I'll give my teeth a good scrub."
Without a word, she ran from the room, Nosy bounding behind her. Seconds later, she returned with a fistful of baking soda. After drawing up beside his bed, she unfurled her fingers. Her hand was none too clean, but Zach had eaten so much dust behind a plow in his lifetime that he didn't figure a little more would kill him. After retrieving the toothbrush Marcus had brought him from the nightstand drawer, he leaned over to get the pitcher and bowl that Kate kept on the tabletop. While Miranda looked on, he set about cleansing his mouth. She giggled when he tipped his head back and gurgled.
"You're so silly," she informed him.
He gave her a wink. After emptying his mouth, he said "How's that?" and stuck out his tongue again for her inspection.
"Clean as a bleach-scrubbed floor," she announced.
Zach returned the pitcher and bowl to the table. "I feel like a new man. Thank you, Miranda."
She hitched up her skirt and climbed onto the edge of his bed. "I reckon Ma won't care now if I visit."
Zach made a mental note to speak with Kate. He'd happily promise to watch his language if Miranda could come visit him.
Taking care not to bump his thighs, she settled herself cross-legged and brushed at a streak of dirt on the knee of her black cotton stocking. Zach's recollections of his boyhood were as clear as if they had happened yesterday, and despite all of his mother's efforts, tidiness had never been one of his concerns. He supposed little girls were just naturally more conscious of their appearance. As well as graceful. The fluttery way Miranda moved was distinctly feminine. He had always assumed the vast differences between males and females manifested themselves in puberty. Not so, he guessed.
Instead of brushing away the dirt, she smudged her stocking with some of the baking soda that still clung to her palm. Her forehead pleated in a frown, and her rosy little mouth pursed. "Consternation," she whispered, sounding very like her mother.
He lifted the corner of the bedsheet and rubbed at the spot, careful not to exert too much pressure on her bony little knee. Like Kate, she wasn't sturdily made. "Now we're both clean."
She smiled at that, flashing a dimple that also put him in mind of her mother. Nosy nudged his nose under her arm and persisted in jostling her until she scratched behind his ears. Zach had a feeling he had lost a dog. "It looks to me like you two have become fast friends."
>
"It didn't take long," she agreed.
As much as he yearned for children of his own, Zach had never been around them much. Being with Miranda made him realize that little girls her age took most of what was said to them literally. He felt a smile spreading warmth through his chest. What, he wondered, did little girls like to talk about? If he didn't think of something, and fast, she and Nosy would leave, and he'd find himself staring at the walls again.
"I'm glad you're here. I've been feeling lonesome."
She fastened her big eyes on his. "Did you cry?"
Zach circled that. "Men don't cry much, and if they do, they don't admit it."
"Would you be barest if I saw you?"
He recalled their first conversation. "Embarrassed? Yeah, I reckon I would."
She nodded. "Folks'd think you was crazy, huh? But you don't need to worry. Me and Ma wouldn't. She says tears can sneak up on a body sometimes. Them happy tears is the worst. My ma has spells of 'em. She don't never cry otherwise, but them old happy tears'll get her ever' time." With a shrug, she added, "We don't got enough egg money to order a cure."
"A cure?" Zach couldn't see the necessity.
"Yep. Them globules cost a whole dollar for two weeks, you know. So my poor ma just gots to stay hysterical."
Miranda was proving to be a font of information. Zach settled back against his pillows. "Hysterical?"
"That's what some folks call it, female hysterics. That's 'cause they think it's odd-turned to cry when you're happy."
"Do you think your ma's odd-turned?"
She wrinkled her nose again, a habit she seemed to have whenever she pondered something. After a moment, her expression cleared and she sighed. "I reckon. My ma says she is, and she's seventeen birthdays smarter than me.
That's why she's so careful to hide her happy tears most times. She don't want folks thinkin' she's crazy. When she can't hide 'em, she says she's got somethin' in her eye. Most times they ain't drippy tears, you see, just the kind that make her eyes shine purdy. And they go away if she blinks real fast."
Her gaze grew intent on Zach's. "You won't go tellin' I told, will you? Ma's barest about it, just like you."
"It'll be our secret."
She apparently liked the idea of sharing a secret. With a smile, she leaned toward him. "You wanna see her do it?"
Zach arched an eyebrow. "Cry, you mean?"
"I can make her."
"You can?"
She gave an emphatic nod. "All's I gots to do is hug her and say I love her this much." She spread her arms as wide as she could stretch. "She gets happy tears ever' time."
A tight sensation crept up the back of Zach's throat. "She must love you very much."
"Yep. That's 'cause I make her so happy she could bust."
"You're a very lucky little girl."
Her radiant smile faded. "Except for I don't got a pa."
"I'll bet you miss him," Zach said softly.
She gave him an odd look. "How can I miss him if I ain't found him yet?"
Zach started to explain that he had been referring to her real father, but then he thought better of it. She obviously hadn't recovered enough from her grief to speak of him, and he respected that. "Good question."
"My new pa'll be somethin'. At night when he comes in, he'll be so glad to see me he'll tickle my neck with his whiskers and throw me way up high in the air and then catch me."
"I see." He repositioned one leg and winced. It'd be a spell before he had strength enough to toss a little girl in the air, much less catch her.
"And he'll 'prise me with a kitten someday, too." She watched him closely as if to gauge his reaction. "He wouldn't have to go clear to Jacksonville for it, though. Not if there was kittens in Roseburg ."
A silken curl fell forward over one of her eyes, and it was all Zach could do not to smooth it back. Her hair, which was still too short and silken to be confined in braids, lay against her cheeks in a dark cloud of ringlets.
She had such a precious little face that his fingers itched to trace its shape. "So you like kittens, do you?"
"I reckon. Mostly I just want me a pa that'd ride a long, long ways to go get me one."
From the sound of it, Joseph Blakely would be a hard act to follow. Not that Zach was in the running. "I hope you all the luck. It's not easy to find a good pa."
Her gaze clung to his. "I know. My ma says even if I was to find one, he might not be in the market for a little girl."
"Maybe not."
After watching him for several seconds, she asked in a thin little voice, "I don't s'pose you want a little girl."
The question made Zach feel as though he had just stepped off into open air. He searched her gaze and read the naked hope there. Until that instant, he hadn't realized where she was heading with this conversation.
"I'd love to have a little girl," he said cautiously. "But wanting and having are two different things. First off, I have to find a wife."
Lowering her head, she fiddled with the hem of her gray pinafore. At last she looked up. "Does it always gots to happen that way?"
"Does what have to happen what way?" he stalled.
"What if you was to find a girl you liked who was already borned? If she didn't have no pa, why couldn't you be her pa?"
Careful, Zach. "I never thought of that. I reckon it could happen that way."
"I ain't got no pa, and I'm already borned."
Feigning a thoughtful frown, he crooked a finger under her chin. Turning her face, he pretended to look her over for flaws. "And you're pretty as can be. I reckon if I were to go shopping for a little girl, I'd pick one just like you."
A beam of happiness lit up her face. "Then you'd like to be my pa?"
"I'd love to be your pa. But about the time I tried to cart you off, your ma'd probably take after me with a shotgun."
"Cart me off?"
"If you were my little girl, you'd have to live with me."
A stricken look crossed her face. "But why can't you be my pa at this house?"
Zach could only wish. "I'm not married to your ma."
"You could go see the preacher."
"A lady has to like a fellow a lot before she'll go with him to the preacher. I'm not sure your ma likes me quite that much."
"Except for your filthy tongue, she likes you fine."
Zach couldn't hide his smile. "Who knows? Maybe if I scrub good with saleratus everyday, she'll take a shine to me."
She nodded enthusiastically. "I'll bring you some, faithful like. Besides, I been makin' magic wishes."
"Just remember that sometimes, no matter how hard we wish, things don't happen exactly the way we want."
She looked unconvinced. "Even magic wishes?"
Zach wished there were such a thing. "I'm afraid not."
"But—" Her lips quivered, and she caught the lower one between her teeth. After a bit, she said, "You mean not ever?"
He had the horrible feeling she might start to cry. "Well, maybe magic wishes come true—sometimes. Let's not count on it, though. If your ma doesn't take a shine to me, you and I can still be friends. Wouldn't that be almost as good?"
Judging from her down-turned mouth, mere friendship with him wasn't what she had in mind. "I reckon."
"Best friends," he amended, hoping that might sound more appealing. "I've always had a hankering for a best friend, and I've never been lucky enough to find one. Have you?"
"Nosy."
He glanced at the dog. "Yeah, he makes a good best friend, all right, but he's not a person. That's different."
"How?"
After thinking a moment, he replied, "Well, if I were your best friend, as soon as I got well enough, I could throw you high in the air and tickle you with my whiskers. It's not just a pa who can do that."
Her face brightened. "And would ya s'prise me with a kitten, maybe?"
"Maybe." He held out his hand to seal the bargain. "
What d'ya say? Best friends, or not?"
"I couldn't call you Pa. "
"No, but you can call me Zach."
"Nope. My ma says I gots to say mister."
"Mr. Zach, then."
Still she didn't accept his handshake. "What would you call me? Seems like it shouldn't oughta be Miranda,
'cause that ain't special."
That one was easy. Miranda had always struck him as too long a handle for such a little thing. "I think I'd call you Mandy. Yeah, Mandy. I like the sound of that."
Apparently she did, too, for she smiled.
He glanced down at his outstretched palm. "Well, will you shake with me on it?"
"What's shakin' do?"
He smothered a chuckle. "It makes it official."
"Official?"
"Kind of like a promise. When two people shake on something, they give their word to honor the bargain."
Her smile turned brilliant, and she placed her tiny hand in his. "You and me, official best friends."
For some reason, Zach had to swallow before he could speak, and even then his voice sounded tight. "You and me."
He closed his fingers around hers, marveling at how small they felt enclosed in his palm. As he regarded her fleeting expressions, he could see why Kate Blakely was afflicted with spells of happy tears.
* * *
That night when Kate brought Zach his supper, he asked her if she could stay and talk to him for a moment.
"About what?" She looked instantly defensive, and more than a little nervous. "You aren't taking a setback, are you?" She leaned forward to place a palm on his forehead.
Zach drew back, wishing that just once she would think of something besides symptoms when she looked at him.
"I'm not feeling sick. Fact is, I'm getting a bit stronger every day. There's just something I need to discuss with you."
She straightened. "Miranda…"
"That's right. I take it she told you about our little visit this afternoon?"
"Yes."
Zach didn't like the wariness that had crept into her eyes and he wondered at the cause. "While we were talking, I learned that you've forbidden her to come in here and see me."