The subject hadn’t come up again between himself and Eleanor. Neither had she produced any veiled hat or smoker, so he decided to go it without them. Every book and pamphlet advised that the first step toward becoming a beekeeper was to find out if you are bee-immune.
So Will did. One warm day in late October he followed instructions minutely: took a fresh bath to wash any scent of Madam from his body, raided Eleanor’s mint patch, rubbed his skin and trousers with crushed leaves, folded his collar up, his sleeves down, tied string around his trouser cuffs and went out to the derelict Whippet to find out what the bees thought of Will Parker.
Reaching the car, he felt his palms begin to sweat. He dried them on his thighs and eased closer, reciting silently, Move slow... bees don’t like abrupt movement.
He inched toward the car... into the front seat... gripped the wheel... and sat with his heart in his throat.
It didn’t take long. They came from behind him, first one, then another, and in no time at all what seemed like the whole damn colony! He forced himself to sit motionless while one landed in his hair and walked through it, buzzing, the rest still in flight about his face. Another lighted on his hand. He waited for it to drill him, but instead the old boy investigated the brown hair on Will’s wrist, strolled to his knuckles and buzzed away, disinterested.
Well, I’ll be damned.
When he told Eleanor about it, she made up for the stings the bees had forgone.
“You did what!”
She spun from the cupboard with her hands on her hips, her eyes fiery with anger.
“I went out and sat in the Whippet to see if I was beeimmune.”
“Without even a veiled hat!”
“I figured you never found one.”
“Because I didn’t want you out there!”
“But I told you, I rubbed mint on myself first and washed the smell of Madam off me.”
“Madam! What in the sam hell has she got to do with it?”
“Bees hate the smell of animals, especially horses and dogs. It gets ‘em mad.”
“But you could have been stung. Bad!” She was livid.
“The book says a beekeeper’s got to expect to get stung now and then. It comes with the job. But after a while you get so you hardly notice it.”
“Oh, swell!” She flung up a hand disparagingly. “And that’s supposed to make me feel good?”
“Well, I figured since I read it in the pamphlet it must be the right way to start. And the book—”
“The book!” She scoffed. “Don’t tell me about books. Did you wear gloves?”
“No. I wanted to find out—”
“And you didn’t take the smoker either!”
“I would have if you’d have given it to me.”
“Don’t you blame me for your own stupidity, Will Parker! That was a damn-fool thing to do and you know it!”
She was so upset she couldn’t countenance him any longer. She spun back to the cake she’d been making, grabbed an egg and cracked it against the lip of the bowl with enough force to annihilate the shell.
“Damn! Now see what you’ve done!”
“Well, if I’d have known you were gonna get mad—”
“I’m not mad!” She fished out a smashed shell and flung it aside vehemently.
“You’re not mad,” he repeated dryly.
“No, I’m not!”
“Then what are you hollering about?”
“I’m not hollering!” she hollered and rounded on him again. “I just don’t know what gets into men’s heads sometimes, that’s all! Why, Donald Wade would’ve had more sense than to go out there into a beehive with no more protection than a smear of mint!”
“I didn’t get bit though, did I?” he inquired smugly.
She glared at him, cheeks mottled, mouth pursed, and finally swung away, too frustrated to confront him any longer. “Go on.” The order came out low and sizzling. “Git out of my kitchen.” She slammed another egg against the bowl, smashing it to smithereens.
He stood five feet away, arms crossed, one shoulder braced indolently against the front room doorway, admiring her angry pink face, the spunky chin, the bounce of her breasts as she whipped the batter. “You know, for someone who’s not mad, you’re sure makin’ a hell of a mess out of those eggshells.”
The next thing he knew, an egg came flying through the air and hit him smack in the middle of the forehead.
“Wh—what the hell—”
He bent forward while yolk ran down his nose and white dangled from his chin, dripping onto his boots.
“You think it’s so funny, go stick your head in a beehive and let them clean it off for you!” She stabbed a finger at the door. “Well, git, I said! Git out of my kitchen!”
He turned to follow orders but even before he reached the door, he was laughing. The first bubble rippled up as he reached the screen door, the second as he jogged down the steps, scraping the slime from his face. By the time he hit the yard he was hooting full-bore.
“Git!”
He shook his head like a dog after a swim and cackled merrily. Behind him the screen door opened and he spun just in time to form a mitt for the next egg she let fly. It burst in his palms, against his hip.
He jigged backward, chortling. “Whooo—ee! Look out, Joe DiMaggio!”
“Damn you, Parker!”
“Ha! Ha! Ha!”
All the way to the well he laughed, and kept it up while he inspected his shirt, stripped it off and rinsed it and himself beneath the pump. He was still chuckling as he hung it on a fencepost to dry.
Then the truth struck him and he became silent as if plunged underwater.
She cares!
It caught him like an uppercut on the chin, snapped him erect to stare at the house.
She cares about you, Parker! And you care about her!
His heart began pounding as he stood motionless in the sun with water streaming down his face and chest. Care about her? Admit it, Parker, you love her. He scraped a hand down his face, shook it off and continued staring, coming to grips with the fact that he was in love with a woman who had just fired an egg at him, a woman seven months pregnant with another man’s baby, a woman he had scarcely touched, never kissed and never desired carnally.
Until now.
He began moving toward the house in long, unhurried strides, feeling the awesome thump of his pulse in his breast and temples, wondering what to say when he reached her.
She was already on her knees with a bucket and rag when he opened the screen door and let it thud quietly behind him. She went on scrubbing, riveting her attention on the floor. The boys were napping, the radio silent. He stood across the room, watching, wondering, waiting.
Go on, then. Lift her to her feet and see if you were right, Parker.
He moved to stand over her, but she toiled stubbornly, her entire body rocking as she scrubbed with triple the energy required for a simple egg.
“Eleanor?”
He’d never called her by her first name before and it doubled his awareness of her as a woman, and hers of him as a man.
“Go away.”
“Eleanor”—spoken softer this time while he gripped her arm as if to tug her up. Her head snapped back, revealing green eyes glimmering with unshed tears.
She was angry, so angry. And the tender tone of his voice added to it, though she didn’t completely understand why. She dashed away the infuriating tears and looked up the considerable length of him, to his bare, wet chest, his attractive face still moist with well water, his hair standing in rills. His eyes appeared troubled, the lashes spiky with moisture. His skin was brown from a long summer’s shirtless labor, and he had filled out until he looked like a lean, fit animal. The sight of him sent a thrill through her vitals. He was all the things that Glendon hadn’t been—honed, hard and handsome. But what man who looked like that would welcome the affections of a plain, crazy woman seven months pregnant, shaped like a watermelon?
Eleanor dropp
ed her chin. He tipped it up with one finger and gave her face a disarming perusal before letting a grin tip the corner of his mouth. “You got one hell of an arm, you know that?”
She jerked her chin away and felt his charm seep through her limbs, but nothing in her life had led her to believe she could attract a man like him so she assumed he was only having fun with her. “It’s not funny, Will.”
Standing above her, he felt disappointment spear him deeply. He dropped to a squat, his gaze falling on her hands, which rested idly over the edge of a white enamel bucket. “No, it’s not,” he replied quietly. “I think we’d better talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Isn’t there?”
She suddenly made an L of her arms and dropped her face against her knuckles.
“Don’t cry.”
“I’m n—not.” Whatever was wrong with her? She never cried, and it was embarrassing to do so before Will Parker for absolutely no good reason at all.
He waited, but she continued sobbing softly, her stomach bobbing. “Don’t...” he whispered, pained.
She threw back her head, rubbed the tears aside and sniffed. “Pregnant women cry sometimes, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry I laughed.”
“I know, and I’m sorry I threw that egg.” She dried her face roughly with her apron. “But, Will, you got to understand about the bees.”
“No, you’ve got to understand about the bees.”
“But, Will—”
He held up both palms. “Now wait a minute before you say anything. I’m not going to lie to you. I have been in the orchard... a lot. But I’m not him, Eleanor, I’m not Glendon. I’m a careful man and I’m not going to get hurt.”
“How do you know that?”
“All right, I don’t. But you just can’t go through life shying away from things you’re scared are going to happen. Chances are they never will anyway.” He suddenly dropped both knees to the floor and rested his hands on his thighs, leaning forward earnestly. “Elly, there are bees all over the place. And honey out there, too, a lot of it. I want to gather it and sell it.”
“But—”
“Now wait a minute, let me finish. You haven’t heard it all.” He drew a deep breath and plunged on. “I’ll need your help. Not with the hives—I’ll take care of that part so you don’t have to go near them. But with the extracting and bottling.”
She glanced away. “For money, I suppose.”
“Well, why not?”
She snapped her gaze back to him, spreading her palms. “But I don’t care about money.”
“Well, maybe I do. If not for myself, for this place, for you and the kids. I mean, there are things I’d like to do around here. I’ve thought about putting in electricity... and a bathroom maybe. With the new baby coming, I thought you’d want those things, too. And what about the baby—where you gonna get the money to pay the doctor?”
“I told you before, I don’t need any doctors.”
“Maybe you didn’t the day the boys got stung—we were lucky that day—but you’ll need one when the baby is born.”
“I’m not having any doctor,” she declared stubbornly.
“But that’s ridiculous! Who’s going to help you when the time comes?”
She squared her chin and looked him dead in the eye. “I was hopin’ you would.”
“Me?” Will’s eyebrows shot up and his head jutted forward. “But I don’t know the first damn thing about it.”
“There’s nothing to it,” she hurried on. “I’ll tell you everything you need to know beforehand. About all you’d have to do is tie the—”
“Now, wait a minute!” He leaped to his feet, holding up both palms like a traffic cop.
Riveting her eyes on him, she got clumsily to her feet. “You’re scared, aren’t you?”
He stuffed his hands into his back pockets, gripping his buttocks. A pair of creases appeared between his eyebrows. “Damn right I’m scared. And it doesn’t make a bit of sense, not when there’s a qualified doctor down there in town who can do it.”
“I told you once, the town’s got no use for me, I got no use for it.”
“But that’s cr—” He stopped himself short.
“Crazy?” She finished for him.
“I didn’t mean to say that.” Damn his thoughtless tongue. “It’s risky. All kinds of things could happen. Why, it could be born with the cord wrapped around its neck, or breech—what if that happened?”
“It won’t. I had two that come out with no trouble at all. All you’d have to do—”
“No!” He put six feet of space between them before facing her again, scowling. “I’m no midwife, goddammit!”
It was the first time Elly had seen him truly angry and she wasn’t sure how to handle him. They faced off, as motionless as chess pieces, their color high and their mouths set while Eleanor felt uncertainty creeping in. She needed him, but he didn’t seem to understand that. She was afraid, but couldn’t let it show. And if what she was about to say backfired, she’d be the sorriest woman in Gordon County.
“Well, then, maybe you’d better collect your things and move on.”
A shaft of dread speared through him. So much for love. How many times in his life had he been through this? Sorry, boy, but we won’t be needin’ you anymore. Wish we could keep you on, boy, but— No matter how hard he worked to prove himself, the end was always inevitable. He should have grown used to it by now. But it hurt, goddammit. It hurt! And she was being unreasonable to expect this of him.
He pulled in a deep, shaky breath and felt his stomach quiver. “Can’t we talk about this, Elly?”
She loved the sound of her name rolling off his tongue. But she wasn’t keeping him around as an ornament. If he was going to stay he had to understand why. Obstinately she knelt and returned to her scrubbing. “I can do it alone. I don’t need you.”
No, nobody ever had. He’d thought this once maybe it’d turn out different. But he was as dispensable to Eleanor Dinsmore as he’d been to everyone from his mother on down to the state of Texas. He could give up and simply walk away from this place, away from her, but whether she loved him or not, he was happy here, happier than he ever remembered being, happy and comfortable and busy and achieving. And that was worth fighting for.
He swallowed his pride, crossed the half-scrubbed floor and squatted beside her, resting both elbows on his knees. “I don’t want to go... but I didn’t hire on here to deliver babies,” he argued quietly, reasonably. “I mean, it’s”—he swallowed—“it’s a little personal, wouldn’t you say?”
“I guess that would bother you,” she returned tightly, continuing to scrub, moving to a new patch of floor to avoid his eyes.
He considered long and hard, fixing his attention on the top of her head. “Yes... yes it would.”
“Glendon did it... twice.”
“That was different. He was your husband.”
Still scrubbing, she said, “You could be, too.”
A shaft of hot surprise sizzled through his veins. But what if he’d misunderstood? Weighing her words, he balanced on the balls of his feet, watching her rock above the scrub rag as the wet spot spread. Her cheeks grew flushed as she clarified, “I mean, I’ve been thinking, and it’s okay with me if we went ahead and got married now. I think we’d get along all right, and the boys like you a lot and you’re real good with them, and... and I really don’t throw eggs very often.” Still she wouldn’t look up.
He contained a smile while his heartbeat clattered. “Is that what you want?”
“I guess.”
Then look at me. Let me see it in your eyes.
But when she finally glanced up he saw only embarrassment at having asked. So... she was not in love, only in a bind... and he was convenient. But, after all, he’d known that from the first time he’d walked in here, hadn’t he?
The silence remained tense. He stretched to his feet and crossed to a window, looked out
at the backyard he’d cleaned, the clothespoles he’d sturdied, thinking of how much more he wanted to do for her. “You know, Eleanor, it’s silly for us to do this just because you put up some ad in the sawmill and just because I answered it. That isn’t reason enough for two people to tie up for life, is it?”
“Don’t you want to?”
He glanced over his shoulder to find her watching him with face ablaze.
“Do you?”
I’m pregnant and unbright and unpretty, she thought.
I’m an ex-con woman-killer, he thought.
And neither of them spoke what was in their hearts.
At length, he glanced out at the yard again. “It seems to me there should be some... some feeling between people or something.” It was his turn to flush, but he kept it hidden from her.
“I like you fine, Will. Don’t you like me?”
She might have been discussing which new rake to select, so emotionless was her tone.
“Yeah,” he said throatily, after a moment. “I like you fine.”
“Then I think we ought to do it.”
Just like that—no harp music swelling out of the heavens, no kissing beneath the stars. Only Elly, seven months pregnant, struggling to her feet and drying her hands on her apron. And Will standing six feet clear of her, staring in the opposite direction. The way they’d laid it out made it sound as exciting as President Roosevelt’s Lend-Lease Program. Well, enough was enough. Before Will agreed, he was going to know exactly what he was getting into here. Resolutely he turned to face her.
“You mind my asking something?”
“Ask.”
“Where would I sleep?”
“Where would you want to sleep?”
He really wasn’t sure. Sleeping with her would be tough, lying beside her pregnant body and not touching it. But sleeping in the barn was mighty lonely. He decided to give away no more or less than necessary. “The nights are getting pretty cool out in that barn.”
“The only place in here is where Glendon slept, you know.”