Читать книгу Milky Way - Muriel Jensen - Страница 12

HE WAS SITTING on the top step of the porch, Daffodil beside him, licking his ear. The dog gave one loud bark and went running toward the truck. Jake got up more slowly and wandered down the steps while Britt came around the truck, eyeing him suspiciously.

She was as pretty as he remembered. After breakfast that morning, as he’d gone around on his self-appointed chores, he’d been plagued with a vivid memory of her, pink-cheeked and clear-eyed, insisting that Marge order his omelet. He’d finally concluded that she couldn’t be as beautiful as he remembered. He was simply flattering himself because she’d come so wholeheartedly to his defense.

But he could see now that his memory had been sharp and true. She’d torn out the braid at some point since he’d seen her this morning, and her gold hair hung loose and a little wild in the early-afternoon wind. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes were bright, though he noticed a bluish bruised effect under them. That hurt him in a way he didn’t entirely understand and couldn’t have explained.

She stopped halfway across the yard as he came toward her. “Mr. Marshack,” she said coolly. “What is it now?”

He fought an overwhelming urge to take her in his arms, carry her into the house and put her somewhere where she could rest undisturbed for a week. Instead, he moved past her to the truck and examined the goat, his hands in his suit pants pockets. “New transportation for Matt so he can keep his paper route?” he asked.

She fought a smile, then gave in. “No, he’ll get by on my old bike. Actually, the goat’s part of my plan to ruin your plan.”

“My plan?”

“To make me sell.”

It wasn’t his plan, it was someone else’s higher up the chain of command. But he didn’t want to talk about that.

“That’s not why I’m here,” he said.

Her heart skipped a beat as she looked into his quiet brown eyes. She’d seen them over and over in her mind last night, then this morning after their meeting in the diner. There was a message in them she was afraid to read.

She dipped her head in mock apology. “My mistake. Why are you here?”

“Actually,” he said, gently taking her arm and leading her toward the porch, “it’s part of my plan to ruin your plan.”

“I’m getting confused,” she admitted. Then she noticed the bike leaning against the porch railing. It was a shiny new Huffy with a water bottle, a carry-bag attached to the frame and other options she couldn’t even identify. She gasped at the beauty of it, smiled instinctively at the way she knew Matt would react to it. Then, when she’d had time to think, she frowned.

“I thought I explained—”

“You did,” he said appeasingly, “and I understand and appreciate all your parental concerns. But the fact remains that your son wasn’t completely at fault, and it bothered me all night. If you insist, he can pay me five dollars a month or something until it’s paid off.”

She looked at the spiffy top-of-the-line model with all the extras. “It would take him until he’s twenty-one.”

“Hardly.”

“Mr. Marshack. I don’t think...” she began halfheartedly, hating to deprive Matt of this beautiful bike, but knowing in her heart he’d be careless with it again and she’d never be able to come close to replacing it.

But the yellow school bus at the end of the lane expelled her children, and the dog ran to greet them. They were halfway to the house when their attention homed in on the bike. Matt shouted and started to run, the others following quickly behind, the dog weaving in and out of them in suicidal patterns. From the truck, Mildred complained loudly. Unnoticed by the other children, the goat brought Renee to a dead stop. At the sight of it she veered toward the truck.

Matt skidded to a halt at the porch steps, Christy and David flanking him breathlessly, all sets of eyes on the bike.

Britt watched Matt’s face as his gaze caressed every shiny inch of it. He looked up at her, obviously afraid to draw any conclusions about what the bike’s presence meant.

“Hi, Mom,” he said. Then, apparently deciding his best behavior was called for in this uncertain situation, he extended his hand to their guest. “Mr. Marshack. Nice to see you again.”

Britt melted as Jake shook hands with her son. Even knowing Matt had probably realized displaying good manners could only be to his benefit, it was such a deep-down, genuine pleasure to find that he’d absorbed something she’d taught him. She put an arm around him and squeezed.

“Mr. Marshack thinks the two of you should make a deal about the bike.”

Joy flashed in Matt’s eyes. He turned to Jake, and took the nobility just a little further. “It was all my fault,” he said. “You’d never have seen my bike in your mirror. You aren’t responsible.” For good measure, he glanced at his mother. “Mom’s got a thing about responsibility.”

Jake nodded gravely, lifted the bike by the handlebars and seat from its leaning position against the steps and steadied it in front of Matt. “She’s absolutely right. And most mistakes we have to pay for, but with some we deserve a break. I figure we can split the cost. You can pay me back for your half at five bucks a month. And you don’t have to start until after the summer trip you’re saving for.”

Matt turned to his mother, his eyes wide with disbelief.

“Wow!” Christy breathed.

“Boy,” David said, his voice filled with awe as he stared at the bike. “Are you lucky!”

“Hop on,” Jake said. “Make sure everything works before I leave.”

Matt watched Britt’s eyes for the firm refusal he seemed to feel sure was coming.

She nodded. “You are lucky,” she said, “to have had your bike run over by someone so understanding and so generous.”

Matt smiled from ear to ear as he threw a leg over the bike. It was the first free, open smile she’d seen on his face in a year. He started to thank Jake and couldn’t. He tried three different times, but the words refused to string together with any kind of coherence.

“Go,” Jake said finally. “Be careful at first, though, just to make sure everything’s all right.”

They all watched as he did a careful circuit of the yard, then a faster, more complicated one. Then Matt shouted gleefully and headed down the drive to the road. “I’m gonna do the loop!” he called. “Be right back.”

Christy and David ran to the fence to watch him.

“The loop?” Jake asked.

“A road around the woods that leads back here.” She looked up into his brown eyes and saw satisfaction there. Making her son happy had made him happy. It was difficult to remain angry with him under those circumstances. “Thank you, Mr. Marshack. He hasn’t been this thrilled about anything since...well, in a long time.”

“It was my pleasure,” he said. “And I have something else to tell you.”

“What’s that?”

Before he could reply, there was a squeal from Renee, who was hanging from the side of the pickup. Mildred had a mouthful of her hair.

With an exasperated groan, Britt ran to the truck. Renee dangled helplessly, giggling and shrieking. Jake supported her while Britt tried to ease her hair from Mildred’s mouth. The goat nibbled at Britt’s hand as she pulled gently.

Finally freed, Renee turned into Jake’s arms, wrapping hers around his neck. “Hi,” she said warmly, making no effort to get down. “You’re back.”

“Yes.” She looked like her mother, he thought, with something in her smile that tugged at him the way Britt’s did. There was openness in it, and a touching need.

“Did you bring the goat?”

“No, your mom did.”

“How come?”

“Because we’re going to make yogurt from Mildred’s milk,” Britt explained, stepping around a mud puddle. Taking Mildred’s lead in one hand and opening the tailgate with the other, she added, “And use it in my cheesecake.”

“Why?”

“Because it’ll be lower in calories.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s less butterfat in goat’s milk.”

“Why?”

Jake admired Britt’s patient answers to Renee’s favorite question. But she was distracted now by Mildred’s refusal to come to the back of the truck. Apparently deciding that the neglect of the past few moments didn’t bode well for a stay of any duration in this place, Mildred refused to budge.

Britt climbed lightly into the truck and, putting a shoulder to Mildred’s rear, pushed until she reached the rear edge. “Mr. Marshack,” she said breathlessly, “would you grab her collar so she doesn’t back away while I jump out?”

Jake put Renee down and complied. The goat looked at him with resentful amber eyes. Britt leaped down and wrapped her arms around Mildred’s four legs. Mildred baaed unhappily.

Jake put a halting hand on Britt’s shoulder. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

Surprised by his tone and a little annoyed with his interference, she replied over her shoulder, “Lifting her down. Get out of the way.”

“You’ll hurt yourself,” he said, pulling off his suit coat.

Holding Mildred’s collar, Britt straightened and looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “Mr. Marshack, I carry fifty-pound bags of grain, heavy bales of hay, even Renee....”

Ignoring her, Jake pushed her aside, wrapped his arms around the goat and lifted. Mildred stood quietly in his arms long enough to give him a false sense of security, then began to struggle wildly as he lowered her to the ground. He held fast, afraid a sudden drop might break a spindly leg.

Determined to break free, Mildred pitched forward. Jake overbalanced and they landed together in a shallow but messy mud puddle.

Britt caught Mildred’s tether before she could prance away and handed it to Renee, who was giggling uproariously. Then she hunkered down beside Jake and considered him, elbows on her knees. Holding back the laughter was choking her.

“I could have done that,” she said, “And without getting muddy.”

The impulse to yank Britt down beside him was overwhelming. Had Renee not been standing there, he might have done it. Mud squished through his clothes and he felt splashes of it on his face.

“You’re walking a fine line, Mrs. Hansen,” he warned quietly, fighting his own urge to laugh. “A sympathetic hand up would be appreciated.”

She straightened to her feet and offered her hand, still biting her bottom lip. “I told you I was perfectly capable of—”

“What can I say?” he groaned, taking her hand and using it only for balance as he pushed himself to his feet. “I was born and bred in Chicago—as a gentleman, I might add. I had this foolish, chivalrous notion that a woman shouldn’t have to lift a goat.”

“Farm women aren’t like city women,” she said, grimacing as she examined the mud covering most of the back of his elegant suit. “You’re a mess, Mr. Marshack. You’d better come inside.”

He stopped as she tried to lead him toward the house.

“Considering I’ve humiliated myself on your behalf,” he said, “do you think you could call me Jake?”

She let her laughter loose then, looping her arm in his. He was forced to laugh with her and allowed himself to be guided up the drive to the porch steps and into the familiar kitchen.

“Keep Mildred company for a few minutes,” Britt called to Renee. “I’ll be right back.”

The other three children piled into the house after them as Jake followed Britt through the kitchen to a dark hallway, then up the back stairs toward a long line of bedrooms.

“The bike’s cool, Mr. Marshack!” Matt reported from the bottom of the stairs. “The thumb-shifters are radical, and the brakes really work.” Then he seemed to notice the condition of Jake’s clothes. “What happened?”

“I was trying to help your mother with the goat,” Jake said. “I didn’t do very well.”

Matt frowned at Britt. “Yeah, I saw it. What’s it for, anyway? Renee says you’re gonna cook it.”

“No,” Britt called over her shoulder, stopping at the doorway to her bedroom. “I’m going to cook with the milk the goat gives us. I’m trying a new recipe for goat’s milk yogurt.”

“Oh.” The word contained very little enthusiasm.

“Are you staying for dinner, Mr. Marshack?” Christy asked, eyes wide and interested behind her glasses. She and David had followed them up the stairs.

A dinner invitation hadn’t been in Britt’s plans, but she quickly decided that since his present predicament had been precipitated by a sincere desire to help her, it would be only hospitable to ask him.

But before she could, David said coaxingly, “We’re having stew.” David always checked the stove when he came home from school.

“Salad, corn bread,” Britt added, “and cheesecake.”

Jake got the impression the children really wanted him to stay. Britt was less easy to read, but he thought he’d be foolish to let that stop him.

“I’d love to stay.”

The children cheered. Some strange emotion stabbed Jake in the chest.

Britt sent the children down to their after-school chores and led Jake into the bedroom. It was green and apricot, with a large window that looked out onto the pasture. Jake wondered if the furniture had come west on a covered wagon. The bed was a four-poster in a light wood with large cannonball-size finials. It had the patina that came from age and caring hands.

She pointed him to a bathroom at the far end of the room. “Shower’s in there. I’ll leave some of Jimmy’s things for you on the bed.” Her blue eyes did a quick, businesslike perusal of him from head to toe, one that made his pulse thrum. “They should fit...just fine.”

She stammered as she looked into his eyes and saw something there she couldn’t define but understood even so. It was related to the sudden acceleration of her heartbeat. The bedroom that had been practically like a convent for the past year, where she read and prayed and mulled over her problems, suddenly hummed with a curious power source. She wasn’t sure where it had come from or why it had sprung to life so suddenly, but she suspected that if she were to touch Jake at that moment, electricity would arc between them.

She sidled past him, between his muddy body and her pristine bedspread, to the door. “I’ll be in the kitchen when you’ve washed off the mud,” she said, then ran from the room as though something had chased her.

* * *

JAKE FOUND showering in Britt’s bathroom an unusual experience. The soap was scented, the shower curtain had green sea grass and pink seashells on it, and the bathroom counter held a modest lineup of cosmetics and colognes. It smelled like she did—vaguely floral and fresh.

On one level he felt uncomfortable because he didn’t want to dirty anything, and he feared in his present condition that was going to be impossible. But on another level, the femininity was curiously comforting.

His condo was all brown and beige and leather. His cream-colored bathroom had a functional shower stall and brown towels. His counter was bare, thanks to a three-sectioned, mirrored cabinet.

He showered quickly, washed his hair and buffed himself dry with a fragrant pink towel. He found a pair of jeans, a chambray shirt and a set of underwear on the foot of the bed. The jeans were a tad short, but fit well. The shirt was perfect. Apparently Jimmy Hansen had been pretty much his size.

The thought had no sooner formed than he was confronted with its confirmation. Sitting down on the bed to put on the slippers Britt had left on the carpet, he found himself eye to eye with a photograph of the man himself in his wedding clothes.

He was surprised to find himself feeling suddenly aggressive. Jimmy Hansen had been nice looking in an unremarkable sort of way, tall and broad and smiling. What showed through and made Jake look twice was what must have been a basic kindness. It was in his eyes, in the way he held the laughing woman in the bridal gown, in the way Britt looked at him with complete trust and open-hearted love.

He felt their unity like a jolt. No wonder Britt could look so bright one moment and so fragile the next. A love like that would be a beacon, but without someone to direct it to, it would be a powerful force to deal with day after day.

He went downstairs feeling unsettled.

He heard the shouting before he reached the kitchen door. “She is not!” a girl’s voice said adamantly. He guessed it was Christy’s.

“She is,” a boy’s voice said reasonably. David. “I heard her talking on the phone to Judy.”

By the time Jake reached the doorway, Christy, wooden spoon in hand, was waving threateningly at her younger brother, who was placing silverware in orderly precision around the table. “Mom would never sell the farm. She couldn’t. We’d have nowhere to live.”

A quick glance around the room showed Jake that Britt and Matt were missing. Matt was delivering papers, Jake knew, but where was his hostess?

Renee followed David with plates and stopped to ask in horror, “You mean...we’re gonna go away?”

“Of course not!” Christy said with conviction, moving back to the pot of stew. “David’s just being dumb.”

“Then how come Mom was crying?” David demanded.

“She wasn’t.”

“She was.”

As though in sympathy, even though the issue wasn’t clear, Renee began to cry. “I don’t want to go away,” she wept, confounding Jake by turning to him, arms raised, as he walked into the room.

Panic seized him. He was alone with three children, two of them fighting and one of them crying. He didn’t know what to do. He tried to tell himself this was no different from a sales meeting, and proceeded to take charge.

He picked up Renee and gently hushed her.

“I don’t want to go away!” she complained, taking his neck in a stranglehold and weeping into it.

“I’m sure nobody’s going away,” he said, one-handedly finishing the placement of plates the child had started. “There. What else do we need to do?”

“Salt and pepper and napkins,” Christy said, pointing to the caddy on the counter. Her own composure looked a little tenuous, Jake thought. “I’m sure Mom’ll be right back.”

The silverware placed, David followed Jake and Renee from the table to the counter, then back to the table. “She was crying,” he told Jake, almost as though he wanted him to do something about it.

“Where’d she go?” Jake asked.

Christy turned away from the stove. “To the barn with the goat.” Then she added in a very mature tone, “I think she just needed a minute to herself. The bank called.”

David looked up at him with solemn dark blue eyes. “They’re not gonna give us the money.”

Jake felt a rush of unreasonable anger. He’d seen her credit profile. Loans-R-Us wouldn’t lend her money. It was only good business. But she wasn’t just a statistic in a ledger to him anymore. She was a brave and beautiful woman pitting herself against impossible odds to try to save her family’s past for her children’s future. Wasn’t that what life was supposed to be about? Taking the love and knowledge of those who came before to make a better world for those who came after?

Jake was just about to put Renee down and check on Britt when the back door opened with a sudden crash. Matt strode into the kitchen, pulling off his delivery sack, its giant pockets emblazoned with the Tyler Citizen logo, and tossing it into a corner between the refrigerator and the wall.

“Mr. Marshack!” he said, his nose and cheeks bright red, a fresh out-of-doors smell clinging to his clothes. “The bike takes the hills like it’s got a motor and I did the most radical wheelie you ever saw on the pad at the gas station.”

Jake smiled at his ingenuous excitement. “Glad to hear it. Maybe we’d better get you a helmet.”

“All right!” Matt agreed as he swept descriptive hands around his head. “One with an eagle with its wings swept back.”

The back door opened and Jake looked up to see Britt walk into the kitchen. She’d apparently stayed in the barn long enough to make certain there would be no evidence of tears when she came back. But on just a little over twenty-four hours’ acquaintance, he knew her well enough to know she felt lower than a hole.