Vows

  She came, she met me, she lay with me and kissed me. And there were feelings between us. Not just heat, but feelings. Then the next time I tried to see her it was "Leave me alone!"

  Frustrated, he drove eight fingers through his hair and roamed the confines of his smithy, picking up tools, casting them aside.

  So what did you expect her to do, fling her arms around you and kiss you in the middle of Grinnell Street when she's engaged to Charles?

  Emily Walcott was no dallier, he knew that. She wasn't toying with him as some women would. If he were to be honest with himself he'd admit that she was just plain scared. Scared of the emotional rush that had caught them both by surprise. Of the intensity. Of the eventualities that hung in the balance and the number of people who could get hurt if they pursued their feelings.

  And what about you? You're not?

  With a weary gust of breath he dropped to a low stool, shoulders slumped, arms hooking his widespread knees. He pulled her hairpin from his skirt pocket, rubbed it between his fingertips … again … and again … and again, staring, remembering her in a myriad of poses: glancing up across the crowded dance floor … cupping her mouth to shout the shrill Basque yell … riding toward him on the turntable. He heard again her voice coming to him in a close black closet, pleading, "Tom, don't. Oh God, please don't," because even before they'd kissed she recognized as well as he the fascination that had been smoldering beneath their surface antipathy. The memory of that first kiss brought memories of others—in Edwin's office, in a fresh snow, on his bed.

  He covered his face with both hands.

  All right, so I'm scared, too. Of hurting Charles. Of being hurt myself. Of making a wrong choice or missing the right one. He lifted his head and stared at the glowing orange forge.

  The question is, do you love her?

  God help me; yes.

  Then hadn't you better tell her without beating around the bush?

  And then what?

  Do you want to marry her?

  He swallowed, but the hairball still stuck.

  Then hadn't you better tell her that, too?

  While he sat with the thought ripe on his mind, footsteps sounded on the floor of the main corridor. Somebody gave the turntable a nudge in passing and made it rumble softly. Seconds later, Charles appeared in the smithy doorway.

  "You won't get much work done that way!" he accused, grinning.

  Tom grinned back, struggling with torn loyalties, happy to see Charles while wishing he'd never met the man.

  "Yeah, well, neither will you." Pushing off both knees, Tom rose from the squatty stool. "What're you doing hanging around here in the middle of the day? Haven't you got some nails to pound?"

  Charles stepped forward, stationed himself just inside the doorway, and smiled broadly. "I came to invite you to my wedding."

  "Your w—"

  "Friday afternoon at one o'clock."

  Tom nearly fell back onto the stool. "Friday? You mean this Friday?"

  "Yup."

  "But that's day after tomorrow!"

  "I know." Charles clapped his palms and rubbed them. "The stubborn wench finally said yes."

  Tom's hairball seemed to inflate to twice its former size. "But … so soon…"

  Charles respectfully dampened his exuberance and moved farther into the room. "It’s because of her mother. Mrs. Walcott’s really bad now. Emily thinks she hasn't got long to live, so she wants us to be married right away. Just a small service, right in Mrs. Walcott's bedroom so she can see it." Charles's happiness effervesced again and he beamed at Tom. "Can you believe it, Tom? Emily's actually impatient!"

  Or running, thought Tom. "I thought she wanted to get her veterinary certificate first."

  "She said she's giving it up." Charles's smile broadened. "Said she'll be too busy raising my babies to have time for anything else."

  Night before last she told me she wasn't ready for babies yet.

  "Well … I'll be damned." Trying to disguise his shock, Tom paced, running a hand through his hair. "That's … well, that's … congratulations…" He flashed a doubtful scowl, as he would have before he'd fallin' in love with Emily. "I think."

  Charles laughed and slapped Tom's shoulder.

  "I think you like her more than you let on."

  "She's all right, I guess. Just a little mouthy."

  "I'm glad you're finally coming around because I've got a favor to ask you."

  "Ask away."

  "I want you to stand up for me at the wedding."

  The hairball threatened to break loose and pull his stomach up with it. Stand up for him? And remain silent when Vasseler asked if anyone knew of any reason for this couple not to be married? And pass Charles the ring to slip on her finger? And kiss her on the cheek afterwards and wish her a life of happiness with another man?

  Sweet Savior, he couldn't do it!

  Hot seemed to turn to cold on his face. Thank God for the dimness in the room. He blinked, gulped, and offered Charles his hand.

  "Of course I will."

  Charles covered Tom's knuckles with a rough palm. "Good. And Tarsy will stand up for Em. She's over there asking her right now, at any rate. Can't see why she'd say no any more than you would." Charles squeezed extra hard on Tom's hand. His voice roughened with sincerity. "I'm so damned happy, man, you can't know how happy I am."

  Tom didn't know where to hide. Afraid the forge would illuminate the underlying dismay in his face, he crooked an elbow and caught Charles around the neck, hauling him close. "Stay that way, Charles. You stay that way forever, cause you deserve it."

  Charles thumped him on the back.

  They stepped apart. "Well…" Tom ran a knuckle beneath his nose, sniffed sheepishly, and stuffed his hands into his hip pockets. "This is getting to be a damned sappy conversation."

  They laughed together, self-consciously.

  "Yeah, and I've got some nails to pound."

  "And I've got an angle-iron to make."

  "So?"

  "So, get the hell out of here."

  "All right … I'm gone!"

  When he was and Tom remained alone in the smithy, the reaction set in, a gut panic, as if a constrictor were preparing him for dinner.

  She's going to do it! The damn fool woman thinks that'll solve everything, to hurry and seal those vows so she 'II be safe from her own feelings. Don't tell me that's not why she's doing this!

  So are you going to stop her or what?

  I'm sure as hell going to try.

  Some friend you are.

  Goddamn it, leave me alone!

  * * *

  He loaded up a wagon with manure from the paddock—the only likely red herring he could dream up on the spur of the moment—and hitched up Liza and Rex to haul it away. He went smack down Main Street to the corner of Burkitt, where he could look up the hill and see her leave Tarsy's house. Whether she crossed the street to head home or came toward town, he'd catch her either way.

  "Whoa," he called, reining in with the horses nosing the intersection. As slowly as prudent, he clambered down and circled the team, checking their feet. He lifted Liza's off fore and examined the shoe, the frog, running a thumb over it, glancing surreptitiously up the hill. The shoe fit fine. The frog was clean. He dropped Liza's foot and checked one of Rex's, then dipped between the team's heads and led them forward a step at a time, searching for a nonexistent limp.

  Another glance up the hill—not a soul in sight.

  He straightened a tug strap, a breech—neither of which needed it—squinted again up Burkitt Street Hill, and there she was, in a brown coat and plaid skirt, crossing Burkitt, heading home. It was a blindingly bright day, the snow almost painful to the eyes beneath an unhampered two o'clock sun. Against the backdrop of white she appeared as stark as an ink spot on a fresh blotter.

  He trotted around and boarded, drove up the hill, took a right on Jefferson, and stayed well behind her, watching her skirts flare with each step, feeling his pulse do irrational thi
ngs at the mere sight of her, with one hand across her chest, chin dropped, pinning the crossed ends of her red scarf to her throat. She walked as she did most things—briskly, with spare efficiency. She'd make some hell of a housewife, whether she knew it or not. She'd run a home and family with the same commitment she gave the stable, the animals. Because that's how she was. He knew it as surely as he knew he wanted the house and family to be his.

  When she was a full block from Tarsy's, he came up behind her.

  "H'lo, Emily."

  She spun as if he'd stuck a gun in her ribs. Her frantic eyes snapped up to his and the arm holding her scarf tightened against her chest.

  "You're looking a little pale," he observed somberly.

  "I told you to leave me alone." She executed an abrupt about-face and marched on while he followed, off her right shoulder, keeping the team to a sedate walk.

  "Yeah, I heard."

  "Then, do it."

  He considered it … for perhaps a quarter of a second.

  "Charles just came by with the news." She strode on determinedly, her skirt whipping with each purposeful step. "You'll pardon me if I don't congratulate you," he added dryly.

  "Go away."

  "Like hell I will. I'm here to stay, tomboy, so you might as well get used to it. What did Tarsy say?"

  "She said yes."

  "So you expect the two of us to stand up there in front of the Lord and Reverend Vasseler and give our blessings?"

  "That wasn't my idea."

  "Oh, that's comforting."

  "Would you please find someone else to follow? The whole town can see us."

  "Come for a ride with me."

  She cut him a withering glance. "On your manure wagon."

  "Say the word and I'll be back with a cutter before you can reach home."

  She stopped and fixed him with a look of long-suffering. "I'm going to marry him, don't you understand that?"

  "Yes, I do. But do you? You're running scared, Emily."

  "I'm doing the sensible thing." She walked on in less of a rush, as if resigned.

  He let the horses fall several feet behind, watching her run away from him, from her feelings, from the undeniable truth. When he could see she was determined to outrun him, he reined to a stop and let her get a good fifteen feet away before finally calling, "Hey, Emily, I forgot to tell you something." He waited, but she neither paused nor turned. Though they were flanked by houses on both sides of the street, he stood up on the wagon and shouted, "I love you!"

  She spun about, her face radiating bald surprise. The town idiot could have detected the magnetism between them as they faced each other across a snow bright afternoon, she fifteen feet up the street, he standing behind a halted team on a manure wagon. More quietly he added, "I suppose you should know that before you marry him."

  She gaped at him, stunned, her lips dropped open. "I forgot something else, too. I'd like to marry you." He let the words settle for several heartbeats before sitting down, flicking the reins, and leaving her standing on the edge of Jefferson Street with her breath still trapped in her throat, one mittened hand pressed to her heart and her face pink as a melon.

  * * *

  She spent the day at home, the evening with Charles; Tom knew it and chafed, but could only keep his distance. At his own house that night he paced and worried, wearing a path from window to window in the hope of seeing her coming across his yard. But the yard remained empty, and he became panicky. At midnight he went to bed and lay awake formulating bizarre plans for waylaying her, most of which were too absurd to implement. By two A.M he'd decided this was a desperate situation, and desperate situations required desperate measures. Judging by the time either she or Edwin opened their livery stable, they roused around six A.M. each morning.

  He was waiting in her backyard at 5:30.

  It was December, and cold, so cold his nostrils kept freezing shut. He turned up the collar of his heavy sheepskin jacket, covered his bare ears with gloved hands, and propped a shoulder against the back of a shed, peering around its corner, watching the path that led from the kitchen door. His own bootprints appeared enormous and obvious, leading off the compacted path to his hiding spot, but the sky was still inky, the moon low and thin on the western horizon. What's more, anyone coming outside would likely be in too much of a hurry to be inspecting the snow for strange footprints.

  Up in the mountains a coyote howled, followed by a chorus of yip-yip-yaps. Up at the house a door closed and hasty footsteps squeaked on the hard-beaten path with a sound like leather beneath a shifting rider. Tom peeked around the corner. It was Edwin hurrying head-down toward the privy. When the door closed behind him, Tom slipped to the far side of the shed to wait. He watched the moon slip behind the mountains, heard Edwin return to the house, and a minute later someone else come out. When the person got halfway down the path he peered around his corner, making out a short female form and pale hair: Fannie.

  Her stay in the privy was brief. When she'd gone back inside the morning felt infinitely colder. God, he'd never shivered so hard. The temperature always dropped before dawn; today it seemed to have plummeted a good twenty degrees. He blew his nose and felt as if his fingers would never thaw after replacing his gloves. His nostrils stuck together again and he skewed his nose to free them. Arms crossed, he stamped his feet and pulled his chin low inside his top button.

  Maybe Emily had come out already and he'd missed her. Or maybe she was sleeping late. This was a stupid idea anyway. He should go home and leave her in peace. Maybe she really loved Charles and he'd be doing the right thing.

  But he was a man in gut-love, so he stayed.

  A full quarter of an hour later Emily appeared. Dawn hovered in the wings, and by its murky light he watched her all the way from the house: taking careful running steps in footwear that made no sound at all, holding her coat lapped closed over her nightgown. Head down and arms crossed, she hurried, her hair creating a black waterfall over her cheeks and shoulders.

  Well before she reached his end of the path Tom had stolen around the far side of the building to wait. But when she opened the privy door and stepped out, he was standing foursquare in the middle of the path, feet planted wide, gloved hands pressed together like a ball and socket.

  "Good morning."

  She straightened in surprise. "Tom!"

  "I need to talk to you."

  "Are you crazy! It's six o'clock in the morning!" She gripped her coat tightly against her throat.

  "I could hardly do it at six o'clock last night, could I?"

  "But it's freezing out here!"

  "I know. I've been here awhile waiting for you. I was beginning to think you'd never come out."

  "I can't talk to you here. I’m…" She glanced at the ground. "My feet… I'm in my slipper and nighty. And the sky will be getting light pretty soon. Anyone could see us."

  "Emily, goddammit, I don't care! You're going to marry the wrong man tomorrow and I don't have a hell of a lot of time to talk you out of it!" In three enormous steps he reached her and scooped her into his arms.

  "Thomas Jeffcoat, you put me down!"

  "Quit kicking and listen to me." He hauled her behind the shed, pressed his spine against the cold wall, and slid to a squat, burying himself in snow to his hips. "Put your feet in here. Lord God, girl, haven't you got more sense than to come outside in these flimsy things?" Her slippers were knit of black carpet yam. Wrapping her nightgown around them he doubled her on his lap and lassoed her with both arms, then looked up into her face, which was higher than his.

  "Emily, you don't leave a fellow much spare time. I wouldn't have done this if I'd had any other choice. But I told you, the man pursues, so I'm pursuing in the only way I know how, crazy as it may be."

  "Crazy will scarcely cover it. That was a terrible thing you did to me yesterday on the street."

  "It made you stop and think though, didn't it?"

  "But you just don't … don't pull up beside a girl in your manure
wagon and ask her to many you!"

  "I know, that's why I came back to ask again."

  "Behind the toilet this time!"

  "The toilet's over there; this is the shed." He gestured with his head.

  "Thomas Jeffcoat, you're a lunatic."

  "I'm in love. So I came to ask you again—will you marry me?"

  "No."

  "Do you love me?"

  "How can you ask me such a thing when my wedding is set for tomorrow!" Exasperated, she struggled to free herself but he tightened his hold around her shoulders, pinning both her arms and knees.

  "Don't answer my question with a question! Do you love me?"

  "That has no bearing on my promise to—"

  "Do you?" he demanded roughly, clasping her neck with one thick-gloved hand, forcing her to turn her face to his.

  "I desire you. I don't know if it's the same th—"

  He slammed her mouth down to his, kissed her hard, infusing the kiss with all the love and desperation and frustration he felt. When he released her his breathing was harsh, his eyes earnest. "I desire you, too—I won't deny it—so much that I'd like to lay you down here in the snow. But it's more than that. I walk around my empty house and imagine you in it with me. I want you at my breakfast table whether you can fry eggs or not. We can eat burned toast for all I care—hell, I'll even do the burning, but I want you there, Emily. And at the livery barn—you're so damned good with horses. Can't you see us walking down there every day and working together? What a pair we'd make at that business!

  "And what about your studies? Charles told me you're going to give them up to have babies, right after you told me that you don't want babies yet. That's not right, Emily. And I don't want babies either, not any sooner than you do. For a while I want it to be you and me, running around in that big house in our underwear. I don't know how we'll manage that, seeing as how all this desire will be cropping up all the time, but we can try. Emily…" This time he inveighed more tenderly. "I love you. I don't want to lose you."

  Folded like an N she sat in his arms and allowed herself to be convinced, let his cold nose nuzzle her warm cheek and his welcome lips bias her own. She forgot her imminent wedding. She forgot the cold. She forgot to object. She opened her mouth and kissed him back—an inadvisable, ample kiss leading to nothing but further confusion, yet she partook of him with the relish of one soon to be denied. He tasted as she remembered, smelled and felt alarmingly familiar—a tempting combination of wet and soft, pliable and hard. As his tongue slewed hers, nerve bursts of heat warmed her deepest parts. Her head listed, swayed, but the kiss remained unbroken as she freed a trapped hand and rested it on his face. His cheek was warm, bristled yet with a night's growth; his jaw hard; his collar warm and furry. Tipped back, his head pressed the shed wall, and she slipped her hand there to pillow it from the hard, icy surface.