Vows, Page 5

  "I'll bet he's got fifty eyelashes for every one of Jerome's. And when he smiles he gets a dimple in his left cheek. And his lips—oh, Emily." Tarsy appeared about to be laid low by another near-collapse, then popped out of it to demand, "Tell me everything you know about him. Everything! Which horse is his? What's he doing here? Where did he come from? Is he staying?" Tarsy folded her hands along her chest, squeezed her eyelids closed, and lifted her face. "Oh, please. God, let him stay!"

  Entering Sergeant's stall, Emily said, "You're wasting your time, Tarsy. He's engaged."

  "Engaged!" Tarsy wailed. "Are you sure?"

  Squatting to strap the poultice to Sergeant's foot, Emily added, "He mentioned a fiancée."

  "Oh, horse puckey!" the blonde pouted, stamping her foot. "Now I will end up an old maid!"

  Though Tarsy was Emily's best friend, there were times when Emily thought the girl hadn't a brain in her head. She was an inveterate flirt, constantly vocalizing her fear of being an old maid when there was about as little chance of that happening as of Sergeant strapping this poultice on himself. But Tarsy was fond of agonizing over the possibility, sitting on Emily's porch swing or in her bedroom, or coming here to the livery stable and flinging her body about as if in near-despair, waxing melodramatic about how lonely life would be at fifty when she was a childless, gray-haired spinster living alone sewing gloves. It wasn't Tarsy's fault she was born needing constant compliments in order to be happy. Or that she'd been endowed with a bent toward melodrama. Emily found both traits amusing and irritating, by turns, especially in light of Tarsy's ability to charm men. For Tarsy, too, had fifty eyelashes for every one of Jerome Berryman's, and poor Jerome was smitten with each one of hers, as were several other local swains. She had reams of bouncing blond hair, a beautiful heart-shaped face high-lighted by her abundantly fringed brown eyes, tiny bones, and a nearly nonexistent waist that drew second glances like a field of blooming buckwheat draws honeybees.

  But, as always, she wanted one more bee.

  "Emily, tell me about him anyway, pleeze."

  "I don't know much except that he's staying and I'm not too happy about it. He's already seen Loucks about buying property and he intends to build a livery stable and go into competition with Papa."

  Tarsy came out of her self-absorption long enough to cover her lips in dismay. "Oh, dear."

  "Yes. Oh, dear."

  "Whatever is your papa going to do?"

  "What can we do? It's a free country, he says."

  "You mean he isn't upset?"

  "I'm the one who's upset!" Emily finished doctoring Sergeant, stood, and wiped her hands agitatedly. "Papa's got enough to worry about with Mama getting worse. And now this." She related what had transpired the previous day, ending, "So if you hear where he intends to put up his livery stable, I'd appreciate your letting us know."

  But before the day was out Emily learned for herself. She was in the office studying, sitting Indian-fashion on the cot with her shoulders curled against the wall, one hand on the sleeping cat and a book in her lap, when Jeffcoat himself appeared in the doorway.

  She glanced up and her eyes iced over.

  "Oh, it's you."

  "Good afternoon, Miss Walcott." He surveyed her unladylike pose while she defiantly refused to alter it on his behalf. A grin unbalanced his mouth as he tipped his hat, and she cursed Tarsy for being right: he did have a dimple in his left cheek and his eyelashes were devilishly thick and long, and he had a disarmingly attractive mouth. And dressed in the same shirt with the missing sleeves, his bulging biceps were as conspicuous as the spine of the Big Horns. But she sensed a cockiness in his unconventional attire, a flaunting of masculinity to which a gentleman would not stoop: his tall black boots led to high-waisted black britches with bright red suspenders that looked quite superfluous on pants that tight. But above all he flaunted those muscular arms, framed by the threads of blue chambray where the sleeve had been chewed off at the armhole. Oh, and didn't he know how to pose the whole collection to best advantage, standing with feet wide-spread, hands hooked at his waist, as if to say, take a look, lady.

  "What do you want?" she demanded rudely.

  "My horses. I'll need them for a few hours."

  Emily flopped her book facedown, sending the cat bounding away. She bounced off the cot and strode for the door at full steam, refusing to excuse herself as she forced Jeffcoat to jump back or be flattened. He jumped. Then whistled as if singed and ambled farther into the empty office to glance amusedly at the cover of her book. The Science of Veterinary Medicine by R. C. Barnum. The amusement left his face, replaced by interest as he turned the volume over, cocked his head, and perused the header on the open page: "Diseases of the Generative Organs of Both the Horse and Mare." His eyes wandered across the cot, across the rag rug, which still held a depression from her rump, to a sheaf of papers that had been at her knee. With a single finger he pivoted them and saw what appeared to be a prepared quiz. He read: What is the most common cause of barrenness in mares and what is its treatment?

  Beneath it she had filled in the answer: An acid secretion of the genital organs or a retention of the afterbirth. The most common treatment is with yeast as follows: Mix 2 heaping tsp. Of yeast into a pint of boiled water, keep warm for 5 or 6 hours. Flush affected parts first with warm water, then inject with yeast. Animal should be mated from 2-6 hours after treatment.

  His eyebrows rose. So the little smart-mouth knew her stuff!

  A hand reached around and snatched the papers from under his nose. "This is a private office!"

  He neither flinched nor blustered but turned loosely to watch her bury the papers beneath a ledger on the littered desk. She was dressed once again in britches and the wool cap, but this time the leather apron was absent and he saw that he'd been mistaken; she did have breasts after all, plum sized and minimized by a perfectly atrocious open-collared boy's shirt the color of horse dung. He made sure his survey of her breasts was completed before she whipped around to confront him with her fists akimbo.

  "You're a nosy, rude man, Mr. Jeffcoat!"

  "And your parents could have taught you a few manners. Miss Walcott."

  "I don't appreciate people sticking their noses into my personal business, and you've done it twice now! I'll thank you not to do it again!"

  For a moment he considered making some comment on her mode of dress, compliment her on how the hue of the shirt did wonders for her complexion, just to nettle her. Actually, she looked quite fetching with her feet spraddled, her fists bunched, and her blue eyes bright and angry. It was a curiosity to find a woman so feisty and outspoken in an age when the ideal female was purported to be one of dulcet voice and retiring comportment. She possessed neither, and it fascinated him. But in the end Jeffcoat decided he might need the use of her veterinary medicine book sometime, so he decided to soothe the waters.

  "I'm sorry, Miss Walcott."

  "If you want your horses, follow me. I don't see any reason why I should get them both out while you dally in here reading other people's mail." She strode for the door, calling back, "What do you want them hitched to, your own wagon?"

  "Are all the women in this town as friendly as you?" he called, following.

  "I said what do you want them hitched to?"

  "Nothing. Just harness 'em and I'll drive 'em out."

  She returned, hands on hips, to advise him with an air of long-suffering, "I don't just harness them, you help me."

  "So what am I paying you for?"

  "You want your horses or not, Jeffcoat?"

  Taking a lead rope, she tossed him another, pushed aside a pole barrier to a stall, and nodded toward an adjacent one. "Liza's in there. Get her."

  Bossy young thing, he thought, grabbing the rope on the fly. But before he could say so she disappeared and he dropped the pole from Liza's stall and stepped inside. "Hiya, girl." He gave Liza a critical look-over, rubbing her withers and shoulders. She'd been brushed down as ordered; her hide was smooth an
d flat. Miss Britches might have the tongue of an adder but she knew how to put away a horse.

  "Liza looks good," he offered, backing the horse into the corridor where Emily was already waiting with Rex. "I can tell you spent plenty of time brushing her."

  For his efforts he received a scowl that said clearly, only an idiot abuses good horseflesh. With the snap lines secured, she turned away haughtily, leading the way to the rear of the barn where carriages and wagons were stored. Inside a separate tack room the equipage hung on wooden pegs. They took his gear down together—she sullen, he amused—and carried it to the main aisle where they began in silence to harness Rex and Liza. When the job was done, she headed for the office, offering not a word of farewell.

  "I'll have them back tonight," he called, "but you can charge me for the full day."

  "You can bet your shabby shirt I will!" she returned without a backward glance, and disappeared into her lair.

  He glanced down at his bare arms, grinned, and thought, all right, so we're even, young fellow.

  Inside the office, sitting cross-legged again with the book on her lap, Emily found her concentration shattered. Her stomach was jumping and her tongue ached from being pressed so tensely to the roof of her mouth. Damn his insufferable hide! When she tried to read, his criticism seemed to superimpose itself upon the words in the book. Infernal, distasteful man! She heard him cluck to the team, heard their hooves clop across the hard dirt floor and move up the street. When the sound disappeared she sat with her head against the wall and her eyes closed, agitated as no man had managed to make her before. Where was he taking the horses without the wagon? And how dare he criticize her papa, whom he didn't even know! His own manners left plenty to be desired!

  Twenty minutes later she'd managed to refocus her attentions on her studies when a screech distracted her. She cocked her head and listened—it sounded like metal on stones. Metal on stones? Suspicion dawned and she tore outside, halted at the wide double doors, and gaped at the jarring sight of Jeffcoat leveling a lot not a hundred feet down the street on the opposite side. He had rented Loucks's steel grader, a monstrous affair painted parsley green that kept the town's streets bladed during summer and plowed in winter, and made Loucks some fairly decent rental money with each lot he sold. The implement had a long-nosed frame upon which the metal blade was tilted by a pair of upright wheels and attached cables. Jeffcoat stood between the wheels on a railed metal platform driving his team like some misplaced Roman gladiator.

  Emily was marching toward him the moment her outrage blossomed.

  "Just what do you think you're doing, Jeffcoat!" she bellowed, approaching him as the rig moved away from her, rolling dirt to one side.

  He glanced over his shoulder and smiled, but kept the team moving. "Leveling my land, Miss Walcott!"

  "In a pig's eye!" She stomped along off his right flank while he rode three feet above her.

  "No, in J. D. Loucks's grader!"

  It was a toss-up who screeched louder, the rocks or Emily. "How dare you pick this spot right on top of my father's!"

  "It was for sale."

  "So were twenty others on the outskirts of town where we wouldn't have to look at you!"

  "This's prime land. Close to the business section. It's a much better buy than the ones out there."

  He reached the far edge of his site and brought the team about, heading back toward Emily.

  "What'd you pay for it?" she shouted.

  "Now who's sticking their nose into other people's business, Miss Walcott?" While he spoke he concentrated on adjusting the two huge metal wheels. His muscles stood out in ridges as the cables groaned and the blade tilted to the proper angle. When he drove past Emily the blade sent a furl of soil cascading across her ankles.

  She jumped over it and roared, "How much!"

  "Three dollars and fifty cents for the first lot and fifty cents each for the other three."

  "Other three! You mean you bought four?"

  "Two for my business. Two for my home. Good price." He grinned down at her while she stalked along beside him, shouting above the screech of steel on stone.

  "I'll buy them all from you for double what you paid."

  "Oh, I'd have to get more than double. After all, this one's already been improved."

  "Jeffcoat, stop that blasted team this minute so I can talk to you!"

  "Whoa!" The team halted and into the sudden silence he said, "Yes, Miss Walcott," flipped the reins around a flywheel, and bounced down beside her. "At your service, Miss Walcott."

  His choice of words, drawled through his insufferable grin, made her agonizingly aware that she was dressed in her brother's gnawed-up cap and britches. She scowled menacingly. "This town is only big enough for one livery stable and you know it!"

  "I'm sorry, Miss Walcott, but I disagree. It's spreading faster than gossip." He wiped his brow on a forearm, tugged off a pair of dirty leather gloves, and flapped them toward the north end of Main Street. "Just look at the building going on. Yesterday when I rode through I counted four houses and two businesses under construction, and by my count the town's got two harnessmakers. If there's business enough for two harnessmakers, there's business enough for two stables. And a school already up, and I hear tell the next thing's going to be a church. That sounds like a town with a future to me. I'm sorry if I have to run your father a little competition, but I'm not out to ruin him, I assure you."

  "And what about Charles? You've already talked to Charles!"

  "Charles?"

  "Charles Bliss. You intend to hire him to help you put up your buildings!"

  "You have some objection to that, too?"

  She objected to everything this man had precipitated in the last twenty-four hours. She objected to his brazenness. To his choice of lots. To his grin and his sweaty smell and his tight trousers, and his cocky good looks, and his stupid unnecessary suspenders and the way he set Tarsy in a dither, and the fact that he tore the sleeves off his shirts, and the more distressing fact that both she and her father would have to look at his damned livery stable out the office window of their own for the rest of their lives!

  She decided to tell him so.

  "I object, Mr. Jeffcoat, to everything you do and are!" She thrust her nose so close to his that she could see herself reflected in his black pupils. "And particularly to your putting Charles into a position where he must choose loyalties. He's been a friend of our family since we were both knee high."

  For the first time she saw the spark of anger in Jeffcoat's cobalt blue eyes. His jaw took on the same tense bulge as his biceps, and his voice had a hard edge. "I've traveled over a thousand miles, left my family and everyone I hold dear, ridden into this backwoods cow town with honorable intentions, honest money, and a strong back. I've bought land and hired a carpenter and I plan to take up my trade in peaceable fashion and become a permanent, law-abiding citizen of Sheridan. So, what do they send me as a welcoming committee but a sassy-mouthed young whelp who needs to have her mouth washed out with soap and be shown what a petticoat is! Understand this. Miss Britches…" Nose to nose, he backed her up as he spoke. "I'm getting mighty damned tired of you raising objections to my every move! I'm not only tired of your orneriness, I'm in a hurry to get my place raised, and I don't intend to take any more sass from an impertinent young tomboy like you. Now, I'll thank you, Miss Walcott, to get off my property!"

  He pulled on his gloves and swung away, leaving her red-faced and speechless. With a deft leap he mounted the railed platform of the grader, took the reins, and shouted, "Hey, giddap, there!"

  And with that their enmity was sealed.

  * * *

  The following day was Sunday. Church services were held in Coffeen Hall, the only building in town with enough adult-sized chairs to accommodate the worshipers from mixed denominations who congregated and were led in prayer by Reverend Vasseler, who'd recently arrived from New York to organize an Episcopal congregation. His voice was mellifluous, his message insp
ired; thus he'd already attracted an impressive number of families to his fold. The hall was crowded when Reverend Vasseler began the service by leading the gathering with the hymn, "All Praise, All Glory Now We Sing." Standing between Charles and her father, Emily sang in a doubtful soprano. Halfway through the song she felt eyes probing and turned to find Tom Jeffcoat in an aisle seat at the rear, singing and watching her. She snapped her mouth shut and stared at him for a full ten seconds.

  "…worship now our heav'nly king…"

  He sang without benefit of a hymnal, belting out the notes robustly, startling her. She had been prepared to see him as the Devil incarnate, but finding him singing hymns at her own church service cast him in quite the opposite light. She snapped her attention to the front and vowed not to give him so much as another glance.

  The hymn ended and they sat. Reverend Vasseler gave a short sermon on the Good Samaritan, then announced that J. D. Loucks had donated a lot on East Loucks Street for the building of a real church. Smiles and murmurs accompanied a general scanning of the room as members of the congregation picked out Loucks and beamed approval. The minister appealed to all the men to do their fair share. He outlined a building plan by which the structure would be up and roofed by midsummer, and totally completed by autumn. Joseph Zollinski had volunteered to organize the volunteer building crew, and Charles Bliss to oversee the work, and all the men present were to see either one of them after the service to volunteer at least a day of their time.

  When the service ended Charles stayed to organize volunteers while Emily left the hall on her father's arm. Halfway to the door, Emily was caught by Tarsy, who grabbed her arm and whispered breathlessly, "He's here!"

  "I know."

  "Introduce us."

  "I will not!"

  "Oh, Emily … pleeeeze!"

  "If you want to meet him go introduce yourself, but don't expect me to. Not after yesterday!"

  "But, Emily, he's absolutely the most luscious creature I've—"

  "Well, good morning, Tarsy," Edwin interrupted.