A Plain Love Song (9 page)

Daed’s words beat a rhythm in her head. She wasn’t to be alone with Jackson. She breathed and tried to smooth her expression.
Maid, house cleaner, nothing more.
“Where’s your mother?”

“I think she went for a ride. She likes to exercise her horse herself.” He pulled a nub of a pencil sporting an oversized pink eraser from behind his ears. His skin reddened under the dark stubble on his chin but his gaze stayed on the paper in front of him. “She told me what your dad said.”

Heat blistered Adah’s skin. She felt as if she’d been dipped in boiling water. Why would Mrs. Hart share this conversation with Jackson? She’d looked surprised at Adah’s explanation that she would have to come back another time if Mrs. Hart wasn’t there when she came to clean. “She did?”

“You helped me out when I was in a fix. I appreciated it. I thought we got off to a good start. Now your father thinks I’m dangerous or something?” Jackson seemed to have a great interest in the notebook in front of him. “What did you tell him about me? All I did was get kicked around by a horse. That may make me an idiot, but it don’t make me dangerous.”

“It’s not that. It’s we’re…he’s…we…we’re traditional.” Was that the right word? She searched her vocabulary for a word an Englisch man would understand. “You’re not married. I’m not married. It’s not considered…proper.”

“I may have some rough edges, but I don’t take advantage of women.” Now his gaze met hers. Some emotion she couldn’t pinpoint danced in his eyes. He leaned back and tugged a pick from his jeans pocket, then picked up the guitar and began to pluck one note at a time, slowly and carefully. Each note sounded hopeful. Hopeful that another might follow. “My parents brought me up right. I try real hard to be a gentleman when it comes to the ladies.”

He did seem to have good manners. Still, she’d promised Daed.
“Then why are you sitting here if you know I’m not supposed to be alone in the house with you?”

“Good point.” A red the color of beets seeped across his face and crept up to his hairline under hair so tousled it looked as if he’d forgotten to comb it. “Sorry. I was stuck on a verse that isn’t coming out right. I thought a change of scenery would help.” He plucked another single note. “Back at school, I found that really helped. I’d drive to a park or just drive around and the words would come. Now I can’t drive so I’m stuck here.”

“I’m supposed to feel sorry for you?” Adah slapped her hand to her mouth. The man was the son of her employer. No call for her to be rude. “I mean, I’m sorry you’re stuck, but I have to clean the house, not babysit.”

“Do I look like I need a babysitter? I just thought…you’re good company. You’re cleaning, I’m writing, what does it hurt?”

He’d spent all of an hour—most of that writhing in pain—with her. How would he know if she were good company? “I’m almost finished in here. It’s fine. You can write in this room while I clean in the kitchen.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” A splash of sarcasm painted the courtesy. He strummed this time, a higher note, then a lower one. She wanted him to show her how to do that. He patted the guitar as if to say
good job
. “Would you mind turning down the radio?”

If she turned down the radio, he’d expect her to continue to make conversation. She would forget all about her job and watch him play the guitar. Maybe learn how to play herself. That was the last thing she needed to do. She had enough problems with Daed…and Matthew. Still, it was Jackson’s house, and his parents were her employers. “I don’t know, I—”

“It’s hard to write lyrics for a song with the radio blaring, that’s all. I can’t hear them in my head. I promise I won’t interfere with your cleaning.”

He would write lyrics while she cleaned house. It seemed unfair. No, this was her life. The one she was born to live—if Daed and Mudder had any say in it. “Okay.”

She flipped the radio off and began to dust around an enormous
flat screen TV mounted on the wall. A long, low bookshelf below it contained rows of DVDs interspersed with photos in black and brown wood frames. Photos of Jackson and his brother and sister posing with steers and hogs and huge ribbons. She picked up the first one, a photo of a younger Jackson wearing a blue jacket with F
UTURE
F
ARMERS OF
A
MERICA
embroidered in gold on the front. Grinning ear to ear, he held an enormous ribbon in one hand and his steer’s harness with the other. Strange things these Englischers documented with photos.

I’ve met my match.

No matter what I do, I can’t catch her.

Every time I get close, she rears up and lets me have it.

She doesn’t give one bit.

No matter what I do, even something completely new,

she rears up and lets me have it.

God knows, He sees how hard I try, but He knows I’ve met my match.

Adah couldn’t help herself. She settled the frame back in its place and turned so she could watch Jackson’s right hand pluck the strings and the fingers of his other hand move up and down the frets, agile, quick, making music. Now and then he stopped, frowned, picked up his pencil, and made scratches on the paper he’d laid on the table. He was making music. Fascinated, Adah forgot to feign dusting. She stood, transfixed, as he created a song that she was the first to hear.

“It’s rough, really rough.” He looked up and presented her with an
aw-shucks
smile. “Sorry you have to hear it before it’s finished.”

“It’s nice…pretty…”

“Naw, it’s a mess. It needs a lot of work.”

“How do you do it?” She had to know. Here sat another person who did what she longed to do. Write songs and play them. “Do you hear it in your head? Do you hear the words first or the notes?”

“Sometimes the melody comes first, sometimes it’s the words, but they get all mixed together in my head. I never know what’s gonna come out.” He cocked his head, his expression puzzled. “Do you play?”

She shook her head. “I love the way it sounds, though. Sometimes
I hear the words in my head too. I can barely read notes, just what I’ve learned from looking at books in the library and the bookstore.”

“You can’t really learn music that way. You have to practice.” He slid the strap over his head and held out the guitar. “I can teach you. With a voice like yours, you should learn. I taught my sister RaeAnne. She’s no good because she doesn’t practice, but that’s not my fault.”

“No. Thank you, but no.” It was all she could do to back away. Every fiber of her being wanted to touch the instrument. “We don’t play musical instruments.”

“Seriously? Not at all? Why?” His eyebrows rose and his forehead wrinkled, giving him a quizzical look as if someone had asked him a question that stumped him. “That’s just crazy talk.”

Captain’s head popped up and his ears flopped as if he heard something in his master’s voice that concerned him. He growled low and soft and laid his head back on his paws. Jackson leaned down and patted his head, his hand sliding along the dog’s back with a gentle, calming touch. Adah had to tear her gaze from his hand.

“We don’t like to draw attention to ourselves. Playing an instrument would be like saying,
Hey, look at me. I’m special
.” That’s the way Daed had explained it to her when she was a little girl and wanted to learn to tap dance like her Englisch friend Tammy. “We sing hymns at church, all together, and we sing at school every day. We have music, just not how you do.”

Jackson frowned as if he was turning the information over in his head, studying it really hard. “A cappella?”

“Aca-what?”

“Singing without instruments. It’s called a cappella. No wonder you have such a gorgeous voice. You’ve developed a good ear. You have to hit the notes with no musical accompaniment. Nice.”

“I never thought about it. The hymns don’t have high notes. They’re slow, very slow, almost like chanting.”

He plucked a few more notes, first low, then high. “I’m planning to play music for a living.” He glanced at the door as if checking to see if anyone were there. “That’s our secret, okay?”

A secret. Just like she had to keep her songwriting a secret from her parents, Jackson didn’t want his parents to know he wanted to make music for a living. Why would they care? Was it against their religion too? “How do you do that? Make a living playing music around here?”

“You don’t. Have you ever heard of Branson?” He lingered on the name as if it tasted sweet on his tongue. “Branson, Missouri?”

“I’ve heard of it.” She tried to recall what she knew from listening to her Englisch friends talk at the parties she’d attended out in the open fields on farms far from her daed’s. “People go there to see shows.”

“Musical shows. Country music shows.” His face shone with excitement as if he could see himself there already. “Soon as I can, I’m going there to audition. I want to try to play some shows.”

He made it sound easy. That ugly snake of envy that had plagued Adah before slithered through her again, this time wrapping itself around her heart and squeezing. She wanted to go to Branson. She wanted to see the shows. She wanted to hear the music. She wanted to
play
the music. “When are you going? What do your parents think of this plan?”

“It’ll all come to a head soon.” His mouth turned down in a tight frown as he tapped his pencil against the paper in a one-two beat. “They don’t know it, but I got so involved in making music in Columbia, I didn’t really go to class much. I didn’t do so hot on my finals. I was already on academic probation. I’m not planning to go back.”

“You haven’t told your parents?”

“Nope.”

“What happens when they find out?”

“Things will blow up. They’ll yell about the wasted money, but it wasn’t their money. They’ll get over it.”

“Because it wasn’t their money?”

“Part of it I raised by selling my 4H steers at auction each year. Part of it came from a trust fund my Gramps left me. They’re not out a dime.”

The Englisch kids were allowed to keep the money from the sale of livestock. Adah couldn’t imagine. Her family needed the money to
feed and clothe themselves and buy basic necessities. “It doesn’t seem like it’s about the money. They’re your parents. Won’t they want you at home with them?”

“I’m twenty-one. Sure, Pop wanted me to study agribusiness and come back here to farm with him, but my brother can do it. It’s not my thing. Pop will get over it.”

Then he wasn’t like Daed. Her father wouldn’t get over something like that. Not ever. Not because he was mean. He loved her and wanted her to give up worldly ways for the one true God. She clutched the dust cloth and breathed. Time to turn away from this temptation. That was all it was. A temptation.

“Sing with me.” Jackson’s voice tugged at her. She glanced back. His head was cocked, his gaze hopeful. “It’s just a song. Songs give people pleasure. And they give people like us a way to express stuff we can’t any other way. What’s the harm in that?”

There was plenty of harm if it took her away from her family and her faith. A man like Jackson wouldn’t understand that. “I can’t.”

“Come on, come on, you know you want to.”

She did want to, in the worst way. She wanted to sing and play with Jackson so much it hurt. Her throat ached with the need.

“I can’t. I have to work.” She edged toward the door, caught her knee on the coffee table, stumbled, and dropped the dust cloth. The tips of her ears hot with embarrassment, she snatched up the cloth and made a final dash to the door like wild hogs were chasing her. “Goodbye.”

Wild hogs didn’t chase her. Jackson’s voice calling her name did.

Chapter 8

A
dah squeezed out the washcloth and hung it on a hook to dry. Mrs. Hart’s kitchen looked spotless. Finally. Her back ached from slapping the mop back and forth over the tile so hard it was a wonder the handle didn’t break. Better to put all that energy in something useful. The floor shone. Adah knew from experience this would last only a few hours—just until Mr. Hart traipsed into the kitchen looking for a diet Pepsi and tracked dirt and straw all over it. He didn’t seem to understand the concept of wiping his boots on the braided rug sprawled across the doorway that led to the back porch. He wouldn’t even notice the damage he’d done. Or care. She dried her hands, resigning herself to the inevitable annihilation of her work. She’d finished the bedrooms, vacuumed, and dusted the dining room and the study and scoured all three bathrooms. Everything. Time to go.

Instead her feet carried her down the carpeted hallway, her footsteps silent, to the living room. The whole time she’d been cleaning, she’d expected Jackson to show up and ask for some lemonade or reiterate his offer to teach her to play or ask her what she thought of his song or ask her to sing with him. Nothing.

Gut.
That was
gut.

She paused near the door, listening. The song fluttered in the air around her, Jackson’s voice wandering up and down the low end of the scale in pursuit of the notes.

I’ve met my match.

No matter what I do, I can’t catch her.

I get close, she rears up and lets me have it.

She doesn’t give one bit.