Morning Glory

Chapter 7

Calvin Purdy bought the eggs at twenty-four cents a dozen. The money belonged to Mrs. Dinsmore, but Will had nine dollars of his own buttoned safely into his breast pocket. He touched it-hard and reassuring behind the blue chambray-and thought of taking something to her. Just because people called her crazy and she wasn’t. Just because she’d been locked inside some house most of her life. And because they’d had words before he left. But what should he take? She wasn’t the perfume type. And anyway, perfume seemed too personal. He’d heard that men bought ribbons for ladies, but he’d feel silly walking up to Purdy and asking him to cut a length of yellow silk ribbon to match her yellow maternity dress. Candy? Food made Eleanor sick. She pecked like a sparrow, hardly ate a thing.

In the end he chose a small figurine of a bluebird, gaily painted. She liked birds, and there wasn’t much around her house in the way of decorations. The bluebird cost him twenty-nine cents, and he spent an additional dime on two chocolate bars for the boys. Pocketing his change, he felt a keen exhilaration to get home.

On his way out of town he passed the house with the tilting picket fence surrounding it like the decaying ribs of a dead animal. He stopped to stare, involuntarily fascinated by the derelict appearance of the place, the grass choking the front steps, the rangy morning glories tangling around the doorknob and up a rickety trellis on the front stoop. Tattered green shades covered the windows, their bottoms shredded into ribbons. Gazing at them, he shivered, yet was tempted to investigate closer, to peek inside. But the shades seemed to warn him away.

They’d locked her in? And pulled down the shades? A woman like Eleanor, who loved birds and katydids and the sky and the orchard? Again Will shivered and hurried on with his cargo of two chocolate bars and a glass bluebird, wishing he could have bought her more. It was a curious feeling for a man to whom gift-giving was foreign. The exchange of gifts implied that a person had both friends and money, but Will had seldom known both at once. Though he’d often imagined how exciting it would be to get gifts, he’d never expected this exhilaration at giving them. But now that he knew about Eleanor Dinsmore’s past, he felt provoked by a great impatience to make reparation for the kindness she’d been robbed of as a child.

Would she still be peeved at him? An unexpected ripple of disquiet swept through him at the thought. He stalked along, studying the ground. The wagon rattled behind him. How do a man and woman learn to make up their differences? At thirty years old, Will didn’t know, but it suddenly became vital that he learn. Always before, if a woman harassed him, he moved on. This was different, Eleanor Dinsmore was different. She was a good mother, a fine woman who’d been locked in a house and called crazy, and if he didn’t tell her she wasn’t, who would?

Eleanor had been miserable ever since Will left. She’d been churlish and snappy with him and he’d been gone nearly three hours on a trip that should have taken only half that time and she was sure he wasn’t coming back. It’s your own fault, Elly. You can’t treat a free man that way and expect him to come back for more.

She put supper on to cook and looked out the back door every three minutes. No Will. She put on a clean dress and combed her hair, twisting it tight and neat on her head. She studied her wide, disturbed eyes in the small mirror on the kitchen shelf, thinking of his face trimmed with shaving lather. He ain’t comin’ back, fool. He’s ten miles in the other direction by now and how you gonna like choppin’ that wood in the morning? And how you gonna like mealtimes lookin’ at his empty chair? And talkin’ to nobody but the boys? Closing her eyes, she wrapped her fists around one another and pressed them to her mouth. I need you, Parker. Please come back.

As Will hurried up the rutted driveway he heard his own heart drumming in his ears. Reaching the edge of the clearing, his footsteps faltered: she was waiting on the porch. Waiting for him, Will Parker. Dressed in her yellow outfit with her hair freshly combed, the boys romping at her ankles and the smell of supper drifting clear across the yard. She raised a hand and waved. "What took you so long? I was worried."

Not only waiting, but worried. A burst of elation ricocheted through his body as he smiled and stretched his stride.

"Studying takes time."

"Will!" Donald Wade came running. "Hey, Will!" He collided with Will’s knees and clung, head back and hair hanging, making the welcome complete. Will roughed the boy’s silky hair.

"Hi, short stuff. How’s things around here?"

"Everything’s peachy." He fell into step beside Will, helping to pull the wagon.

"What’d you do while I was gone?"

"Mama made me take a nap." Donald Wade made a distasteful face.

"A nap, huh?" Reaching the bottom of the porch steps, Will dropped the wagon handle and lifted his eyes to the woman above him. "Did she take one with you?"

"No. She took a bath in the washtub."

"Donald Wade, you hush now, you hear?" Eleanor chided, her cheeks turning suspiciously bright. Then, to Will, "How’d you do?"

"Did good." He handed her the money. "Miss Beasley at the library took one dozen eggs for twenty-five cents, and I sold the rest to Calvin Purdy for twenty-four cents a dozen. It’s all there, a dollar twenty-one. Miss Beasley said to tell you hello."

"She did?" Eleanor’s palm hung in midair, the money forgotten.

"Said she remembers you comin’ in with Miss Buttry’s fifth grade class or Miss Natwick’s sixth."

"Well, imagine that." Her smile was all amazement and wide eyes. "Who’d have thought she’d remember me?"

"She did, though."

"I never even thought she knew my name."

Will grinned. "Don’t think there’s much that woman doesn’t know."

Eleanor laughed, remembering the librarian.

"I’ll bet it was pretty in the library, wasn’t it?"

"Sure was. Bright." Will gestured in the air. "With big windows, rounded at the top. Smelled good, too."

"Did you get your card?"

"Couldn’t. Not without you. Miss Beasley says you’ll have to verify that I work for you."

"You mean go in there?" The animation left Elly’s face and her voice quieted. "Oh, I don’t think I could do that."

Yesterday he’d have asked why. Today he only replied, "You can write a note. She said that’d be okay and I can bring it next time I go in. Have to go in next week again. Miss Beasley said she’ll want another dozen eggs."

"She did?" Eleanor’s elation returned as quickly as it had fled.

"That’s right. And, you know, I was thinking." Will tipped his hat brim back, hooked one boot on the bottom step and braced a hand on the knee. "If you were to pack the extra cream in pint jars I think I could sell it, too. Make a little extra."

She couldn’t resist teasing, "You gonna turn into one of those men who loves money, Mr. Parker?"

He knew full well there was more than teasing behind the remark-there was her very real aversion to town. A recluse, Miss Beasley had called her. Was she really? To the point of avoiding contact with people even if it meant making money? She hadn’t even bothered to count what he’d handed her. He supposed this was something they’d have to work out eventually. "No, ma’am." He withdrew his boot from the step. "It’s just that I don’t see any sense in losing the opportunity to make it."

Donald Wade spotted the brown paper bag and tugged Will’s sleeve. "Hey, Will, what you got in there?"

Will reluctantly pulled his attention from Eleanor and went down on one knee beside the wagon, an arm around the boy’s waist. "Well, what do you think?" Donald Wade shrugged, his eyes fixed on the sack. "Maybe you better look inside and see." Donald Wade’s hazel eyes gleamed with excitement as he peeked into the bag, reached and withdrew the two candy bars.

"Candy," he breathed, awed.

"Chocolate." Will crossed his elbows on his knee, smiling. "One for you, one for your little brother."

"Chocolate." Donald Wade repeated, then to his mother, "Lookit, Mama, Will brung us chocolate!"

Her appreciative eyes sought Will’s and he felt as if someone had just tied a half-hitch around his heart. "Now wasn’t that thoughtful. Say thank you to Mr. Parker, Donald Wade."

"Thanks, Will!"

With an effort, Will dropped his attention to the boy. "You peel one for Thomas now, all right?"

Grinning, he watched the boys settle side by side on the step and begin to made brown rings around their mouths.

"I appreciate your thinkin’ of them, Mr. Parker."

He slowly stretched to his feet and looked up into her face. Her lips were tipped up softly. Her hair was drawn back in a thick tied-down braid the color of autumn grain. Her eyes were green as jade. How could anybody lock her in a house?

"Boys got to have a little candy now and then. Brought something for you, too."

"For me?" She spread a hand on her chest.

He extended an arm with the sack caught between two fingers. "It isn’t much."

"Why, whatever-" Elly excitedly plunged her hand inside, wasting not a second on foolish dissembling. Withdrawing the figurine, she held it at shoulder level. "Oh myyy… oh, Mr. Parker." She covered her mouth and blinked hard. "Oh, myyyy." She held the bluebird at arm’s length and caught her breath. "Why, it’s beautiful."

"I had a little money of my own," he clarified, since she hadn’t bothered to count the egg money and he didn’t want her thinking he’d spent any of hers. He could tell by her expression the thought hadn’t entered her mind. She smiled into the bluebird’s painted eye, her own shining with delight. "A bluebird… imagine that." She pressed it to her heart and beamed at Will. "How did you know I like birds?"

He knew. He knew.

He stood watching her, feeling ready to burst with gratification as she examined the bird from every angle. "I just love it." She flashed him another warm smile. "It’s the nicest present I ever got. Thank you."

He nodded.

"See, boys?" She squatted to show them. "Mr. Parker brought me a bluebird. Isn’t it about the prettiest thing you ever saw? Now where should we put it? I was thinkin’ on the kitchen table. No, maybe on my nightstand-why, it would look good just about anyplace, wouldn’t it? Come in and help me decide. You too, Mr. Parker."

She bustled inside, so excited she forgot to hold the screen door open for Thomas to scramble inside. Will plucked him off the step and got chocolate on his shirt, but what was a little chocolate to a man so happy? He stood just inside the kitchen doorway with the baby on his arm, watching Eleanor try the bird everywhere-on the table, on the cupboard, beside the cookie jar. "Where should we put it, Donald Wade?" Always, she made the boy feel important. And now Will, too.

"On the windowsill, so all the other birds will see it and come close."

"Mmm… on the windowsill." She pinched her lower lip and considered the sills-east, south and west. The kitchen jutted off the main body of the building, a room with ample brightness. "Why of course. Now why didn’t I think of that?" She placed the bluebird on a west sill, overlooking the backyard, where the clothespoles had been repaired and now stood straight and sturdy. She leaned back, clapped once and pressed her folded hands against her chin. "Oh, yes, it’s exactly what this place needed!"

It needed a lot more than a cheap glass figurine, but as Eleanor danced across the room and squeezed Will’s arm, he felt as if he’d just bought her a collector’s piece.

If Will had been eager to make improvements around the place before his trip to town, afterward he worked even harder, fired by the zeal to atone for a past which was none of his making. He spent hours wondering about the people who’d locked her in that house behind the green shades. And how long she’d been there, and why. And about the man who’d taken her away from it, the one she said she still loved. And how long it might take for that love to begin fading.

It was during those days that Will became aware of things he’d never noticed before: how she hadn’t hung a curtain on a window; how she paused to worship the sun whenever she stepped outside; how she never failed to find praise for the day-be it rain or shine-something to marvel over; and at night, when Will stepped out of the barn to relieve himself, no matter what the hour… her bedroom light was always burning. It wasn’t until he’d seen it several times that he realized she wasn’t up checking on the boys, but sleeping with it on.

Why had her family done it to her?

But if anyone respected a person’s right to privacy it was Will. He needn’t know the answers to accept the fact that he was no longer laboring only to have a roof over his head, but to please her.

He mended the road-oiled the harness and hitched Madam to a heavy steel road scraper shaped like a giant grain shovel, with handles like a wheelbarrow, an ungainly thing to work with. But with Madam pulling and Will pushing, directing the straight steel cutting edge into the earth, they tackled the arduous task. They shaved off the high spots, filled in the washouts, rolled boulders off to the sides and grubbed out erupted roots.

Donald Wade became Will’s constant companion. He’d take a seat on a bank or a branch, watching, listening, learning. Sometimes Will gave him a shovel and let him root around throwing small rocks off to the side, then praised him for his fledgling efforts as he’d heard Eleanor do.

One day Donald Wade observed, "My daddy, he didn’t work much. Not like you."

"What did he do, then?"

"He puttered. That’s what Mama called it."

"Puttered, huh?" Will mulled this over a moment and asked, "He treated your Mama nice though, didn’t he?"

"I guess so. She liked him." After a moment’s pause, Donald Wade added, "But he din’t buy her bluebirds."

While Will considered this, Donald Wade voiced another surprising question.

"Are you my daddy now?"

"No, Donald Wade, I’m sorry to say I’m not."

"You gonna be?"

Will had no answer. The answer depended on Eleanor Dinsmore.

She came twice a day-morning and afternoon-pulling Baby Thomas and a jug of cool raspberry nectar in the wagon. And they’d all sit together beneath the shade of her favorite sourwood tree and relish the treat while she pointed out the birds she knew. She seemed to know them all-doves and hawks and warblers and finches. And trees, too-the sourwood itself, the tulip poplar, redbud, basswood and willow, so many more varieties than Will had realized were there. She knew the small plants, too-the gallberry and snow vine, the sumac and crownbeard and one with a lovely name, summer farewell, which brought a winsome tilt to her lips and made him study those lips more closely than the summer farewell.

Those minutes spent resting beneath the sourwood tree were some of the finest of Will’s life.

"My," she would say, "this is gonna be some road." And it would be all the charge Will needed to return to the scraper and push harder than before.

The day the road was done Will whispered his thanks into Madam’s ear, fed her a gold carrot from the garden and gave her a bath as a treat. After supper, he and Eleanor took the boys for a wagon ride down the freshly-bladed earth that rose firm into the trees before dripping to link their house with the county road below.

"It’s a beautiful road, Will," she praised, and he smiled in quiet satisfaction.

The next day he tightened up a wagon, replaced two boards on its bed, hitched up Madam and took his first load of junk to the Whitney dump. He took, too, a note from Eleanor, and Miss Beasley’s eggs, plus several dozen more and five pints of cream, one which never made it farther than the library.

"Cream!" Miss Beasley exclaimed. "Why, I’ve had the worst craving for strawberry shortcake lately and what’s strawberry shortcake without whipped cream?" She chuckled and got out her black snap-top coin purse.

And though Will checked out his first books with his own library card, just before he left she remembered, "Oh, I didfind some pamphlets on beekeeping while I was sorting in the back room. You need not return these." She produced a mustard-yellow envelope bearing his name and laid it on the desk. "They’re put out by the county extension office… every five years,mind you, when the bee is the only creature on God’s green earth that hasn’t changed its habits or its habitat since before man walked upright! But when the new pamphlets come in, the old ones get thrown-useful or not!" She blustered on, busying her hands, carefully avoiding Will’s eyes. "Why, I’ve got a good mind to write to my county commissioner about such outright waste of the taxpayers’ money!"

Will was charmed.

"Thank you, Miss Beasley."

Still she wouldn’t look at him. "No need to thank me for something that would’ve gone to waste anyway."

But he saw beyond her smokescreen to the woman who had difficulty befriending men and his heart warmed more.

"I’ll see you next week."

She looked up only when his hand gripped the brass knob, but even from a distance he noted the two spots of color in her cheeks.

Smiling to himself, Will loped down the library steps with his stack of books on one hip and the yellow envelope slapping his thigh.

"Myyy, myyy… if it isn’t Mr. Parker."

Will came up short at the sight of Lula Peak, two steps below, smiling at him with come-hither eyes. She wore her usual Betty Grable foreknot, lipstick the color of a blood clot, and stood with one hip permanently jutted to hold her hand.

"Afternoon, ma’am." He tried to move around her but she side-stepped adroitly.

"What’s your hurry?" She chewed gum as gracefully as an alligator gnawing raw meat.

"Got cream in the wagon that shouldn’t be sitting in the sun."

She smoothed the hair up the back of her head, then, raising her chin, skimmed three fingertips down the V of her uniform. "Lawzy… it’s a hot one all right." Standing one step below Will, Lula was nearly nose to navel with him. Her eyes roved lazily down his shirt and jeans to the envelope on which Miss Beasley had written his name. "So it’s Will, is it?" she drawled. Her eyes took their time climbing back up, lingering where they would. "Will Parker," she drawled, and touched his belt buckle with the tip of one scarlet nail. "Nice name… Will." It took control for him to resist leaping back from her touch, but he stood his ground politely while she tipped her head and waggled her shoulders. "So, Will Parker, why don’t you stop in at the cafe and I’ll fix you a ni-i-ice glass of iced tea. Taste good on a hot one like this, mmm?"

For one horrified moment he thought she might run that nail straight down his crotch. He jumped before she could. "Don’t think I’ll have time, ma’am." This time she let him pass. "Got things to do." He felt her eyes following as he climbed the wagon wheel, took the reins and drove around the town square to Purdy’s.

That woman was trouble with a capital T, and he didn’t want any. Not of it or of her. He made sure he avoided glancing across the square while he entered the store.

Purdy bought the cream and the eggs and said, "Fine, anytime you got fresh, just bring ’em in. I got no trouble getting rid of fresh."

Lula was gone when Will came out of the store, but her kewpie doll act left him feeling dirty and anxious to get back home.

Eleanor and the boys were waiting under their favorite sourwood tree this time. Will gravitated toward them like a compass needle toward the North Pole. Here was where he belonged, here with this unadorned woman whose simplicity made Lula look brassy, whose wholesomeness made Lula look brazen. He found it hard to believe that in his younger days he’d have chosen a woman like that over one like this.

She stood, brushing off the back of her skirt as he drew up and reined in Madam.

"You’re back."

"Yup."

They smiled at each other and a moment of subtle appreciation fluttered between them. She boosted the boys up onto the wagon seat and he transferred them into the back, swinging them high and making them giggle. "You sit down back there now so you don’t tumble off." They scrambled to follow orders and Will leaned to extend a helping hand to their mother. He clasped her palm and for the space of two heartbeats neither of them moved. She poised with one foot on a wagon cleat, her green eyes caught in his brown. Abruptly she clambered up and sat down, as if the moment had not happened.

He thought about it during the days that followed, while he continued improving the place, scrubbing walls and ceilings, finishing the plastering and painting walls that appeared to never have seen paint before. He put doors on the bottom kitchen cabinets and built new ones for above. He bartered a used kitchen sink for a piece of linoleum (both at a premium and growing scarcer) with which he covered the new cabinet top. The linoleum was yellow, streaked, like sun leaching through daisy petals: yellow, which seemed to suit Eleanor best and set off her green eyes.

She grew rounder and moved more slowly. Day after day he watched her hauling dishpans and slop buckets out to slew in the yard. She washed diapers for only one now, but soon there’d be two. He dug a cesspool and ran a drainpipe from underneath the sink, eliminating the need for carrying out dishpans.

She was radiant with thanks and rushed to dump a first basin of water down the drain and rejoice when it magically disappeared by itself. She said it didn’t matter that he hadn’t been able to find enough linoleum for the floor, too. The room was brighter and cleaner than it had ever been before.

Hewas disappointed about the linoleum for the floor. He wanted the room perfect for her, but linoleum and bathtubs and so many other commodities were getting harder and harder to come by with factories of all kinds converting to the production of war supplies. In prison Will had read the newspaper daily but now he caught up with world events only when he went to the library. Still, he was aware of the rumblings in Europe and wondered how long America could supply England and France with planes and tanks without getting into the fighting herself. He shuddered at the thought, even as he took his first load of scrap metal to town and got a dollar per hundredweight for Glendon Dinsmore’s "junk."

There was talk of America actively joining the war, though America Firsters-among them the Lone Eagle, Charles Lindbergh-spoke out against the U.S. drift toward it. But Roosevelt was beefing up America’s defenses. The draft was already in force, and Will was of age, healthy and single. Eleanor remained blissfully ignorant of the state of the world beyond the end of their driveway.

Then one day Will unearthed a radio in one of the sheds. It took some doing to find a battery for it-batteries, too, were being gobbled up by England to keep walkie-talkies operable. But again he bartered with a spare can of paint, only to find that even when the battery was installed, the radio still refused to work. Miss Beasley found a book that told him how to fix it.

The particular hour he coaxed it back to life, "Ma Perkins" was on the air on the blue network. The boys were having their afternoon nap and Eleanor was ironing. As the staticky program filled the kitchen, her eyes lit up like the amber tube behind the RCA Victor grille.

"How ’bout that-it works!" Will said, amazed.

"Shh!" She pulled up a chair while Will knelt on the floor and together they listened to the latest adventure of the widow who managed a lumberyard in Rushville Center, U.S.A., where she lived, by the golden rule, with her three kids, John, Evey and Fay. Anybody who loved their kids as much as Ma Perkins was all right with Eleanor, and Will could see Ma had gained a faithful listener.

That evening they all hovered close to the magical box while Will and Eleanor watched the boys’ eyes alight at the sound of "The Lone Ranger" and Tonto, his faithful Indian friend, whom he called kemo sabe.

After that, Donald Wade never walked; he galloped. He whinnied, shied, made hoof sounds with his tongue and hobbled "Silver" at the door each time he came in. Will playfully called him kemo sabe one day, and after that Donald Wade tried their patience by calling everybody else kemo sabe a hundred times a day.

The radio brought more than fantasy. It brought reality in the form of Edward R. Murrow and the news. Each evening during supper Will tuned it in. Murrow’s grave voice with its distinctive pause, would fill the kitchen: "This… is London." In the background could be heard the scream of German bombers, the wail of air raid sirens and the thunder of antiaircraft fire. But Will thought he was the only one in the kitchen who truly believed they were real.

Though Elly refused to discuss it, the war was coming, and when it did his number might be called. He pushed himself harder.

He put up next year’s wood, scraped the old linoleum off the kitchen floor, sanded and varnished it, and began fantasizing about installing a bathroom-if he could come up with the fixtures.

And in secret, he read about bees.

They held, for him, an undeniable fascination. He spent hours observing the hives from a distance, those hives he’d at first believed abandoned by the insects but were not. He knew better now. The appearance of only a few bees at the hive opening meant nothing, because most of them were either inside waiting on the queen or out in the fields gathering pollen, nectar and water.

He read more, learned more-that the worker bees carried pollen in their back legs; that they needed saltwater daily to drink; that the honey was made in stackable frames called supers which the beekeeper added to the tops of the hives as the lower ones filled; that the bees ate their own honey to survive the winter; that during summer, the heaviest production time, if the laden supers weren’t removed the honey grew so heavy it sometimes crowded the bees out and they swarmed.

Experimentally, he filled a single pan with saltwater one day. The next day it was empty, so he knew the hives were active. He watched the workers leaving with their back legs thin and returning with their pollen sacks filled. Will knew he was right without even opening the hives to see inside. Glendon Dinsmore had died in April. If no supers had been added since then, the bees could swarm anytime. If none had been taken since then, they were laden with honey. A lot of honey, and Will Parker wanted to sell it.

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 foregone.

"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 bee-immune."

"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.

"Elly, 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’s 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 dropped 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 havebeen 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."

"I know." After an extended silence, "So?"

"You’d be my husband."

"Yeah," he said expressionlessly, realizing she wasn’t too thrilled at the prospect.

"I… I sleep with the light on."

"I know."

Her eyebrows lifted. "You do?"

"I’ve been up at night and seen it."

"It’d probably keep you awake."

What was she doing arguing against it when the idea made her have to fight for breath?

He thought long and hard before trusting her enough to reveal a crack in his defenses. "In prison it was never completely dark either."

He noted a softening in her expression and wondered if someday he could trust her with the rest of his vulnerabilities.

"Well, in that case…" The silence welled around them while they tried to think of what to say or do next. Had this been a regular proposal with the expected emotions on both sides, the moment would undoubtedly have been intimate. Because it wasn’t, the strain multiplied.

"Well…" He rubbed his nose and chuckled nervously.

"Yes… well." She spread her hands, then linked them beneath her swollen belly.

"I don’t know how a person goes about getting married."

"We do it at the courthouse in Calhoun. We can get the license right there, too."

"You want to drive in tomorrow, then?"

"Tomorrow’d be fine."

"What time?"

"We’d better start early. We’ll have to take a wagon, ’cause the boys’ll be with us. And as you know, Madam’s pretty slow."

"Nine o’clock then?"

"Nine should be fine."

For a moment they studied each other, realizing to what they’d just agreed. How awkward. How incredible. Self-consciousness struck them simultaneously. He reached up to pull his hat brim down, only to discover he’d left his hat hanging on the fencepost. So he hooked a thumb in his hind pocket and backed up a step.

"Well… I got work to finish." His thumb jabbed the air above his shoulder.

"So do I."

He backed up two more steps, wondering what she’d do if he switched directions and kissed her. But in the end he followed his own advice and left without trying.