Courting Miss Hattie (20 page)

"That's not so. Actually, you use the peck a lot."

Hattie shook her head in disbelief. "I wouldn't. Why would you ever peck when you can
peach!
"

"You do both," he said. "You mix your pecks with peaches, so you get all different kinds of textures and feelings."

To the surprise of them both, Hattie leaned toward him, her hand trembling as she touched his cheek. "Show me," she whispered.

Their mouths met with practiced perfection. The peach was hot this time, hot and juicy and illicit. Reed added pecks to the side of her mouth, her eyes, her throat, returning again and again for more peaches. As their bodies pressed together, his blood was pounding with a furious insistence. He eased his chest from left to right to feel her nipples rub against him. Needing, wanting, he heard the tiny cries deep in her throat. Answering them, he thrust his tongue into her mouth.

"Oh!"
With a cry of surprise, Hattie pulled back. She hadn't expected the wild intrusion of his tongue or the desires it provoked.

Reed sat beside her, his lust overriding his common sense as he watched the rapid rise and fall of her bosom. Of its own volition, his hand lifted and cupped her breast. Her firm warm flesh filled his hand, and he felt the hardened nipple against his palm.

Hattie only looked at him, and in the bright glow of the doorway light, she was beautiful. Her eyes were wide and anxious, but she was not afraid. She trusted him. He could see it in her face, and at that moment, he was not a man to be trusted.

"Dammit, Hattie. Slap my face!"

She did. Bringing her right hand up, she struck him a stinging blow. The hand that had so tenderly caressed her breast now covered his cheek. Stunned by what they had both done, she turned away from him. They sat silently, staring into the foggy cocoon that surrounded them and trying to adjust to the abrupt change in their long friendship.

Hattie spoke finally, her voice firm and controlled. She would not allow herself the luxury of embarrassment. "Was that the third kind of kiss, Reed? When you put your tongue—"

"Yes," he interrupted, not wanting her to describe it further. "It's a lover's kiss, Hattie. Not one for courting. Certainly not one from a friend."

She nodded, still not looking at him.

"I just want to tell you how—" he began, but she cut him off with a gesture.

"I think
it's
best that we not speak of it again, Reed. Thank you for teaching me about kissing." She stood up to go into the house.

When he spoke her name, she finally looked back at him. "You are a very sweet and desirable woman, Hattie," he said, his voice as gentle as a caress. "Please don't let Drayton take advantage of your innocence."

Gazing at him for a moment, she tried to memorize how he looked, as if she would save the image for a lifetime. "I've also learned how to slap a man's face," she said quietly. "Good night, Reed."

 
CHAPTER
 
11

«
^
»

H
attie plucked a ripe red tomato from the vine and set it carefully in her basket. Her garden was doing exceptionally well, and if its growth was indicative of that of the field crops, this was going to be a good year.

At
the end of the last row, she turned back to survey her work. After pulling out one stray weed, she declared her gardening done and headed back to the house. As she walked, she glanced around the fields, unconsciously looking for Reed. Earlier that morning he'd been chopping cotton on the lower ridge, but he was nowhere in sight now. She felt a pull of disappointment and immediately chastised herself. After her behavior last Sunday evening, she had absolutely no business thinking about Reed Tyler.

However, telling herself not to think about Reed and what had happened and not thinking about what happened were two entirely different things.

The week had been a hectic one, and both she and Reed had been busy. He'd shown up at breakfast Monday morning as usual and hadn't mentioned a word about the kissing lesson. She in turn had shown up at the rice field to help sow the seed and studiously avoided any subject but farming.

Reed had wanted to drill the seed instead of broadcasting it, in the hope that the birds would be cheated out of their share. It took more time, but Hattie was willing to help. She hoped the familiarity of working together would erase the disquiet that had sprung up between them. It did, and as the week passed, they slowly recovered their lighthearted working relationship. They went on just as before, Hattie told herself, but occasionally she was weak enough to remember the fire in his kiss and the warmth of his hand on her breast.

As quickly as the thoughts returned, she shook them away. She'd been invited by Preacher Able and Millie for dominoes again that night, and of course they had included Mr. Drayton. He would be driving her in her buggy. Anticipating some time alone with him, she imagined how different this evening would be. She wouldn't have to run like a scared rabbit when he tried to kiss her. Smiling to herself, she wondered what the kiss would be like. If she could make a man like Reed tremble, she thought, she had no cause to be apprehensive about
Ancil
Drayton.

She would never have admitted it to anyone save her confessor, but she'd found kissing an activity entirely to her liking. It was downright scandalous for an aging spinster to think that way, but Hattie knew the truth when she saw it.

She untied her work bonnet and hung it on the nail just inside the kitchen door. After carefully setting her tomatoes bottom-side-up on the windowsill, she checked the chicken stew simmering on the stove. Reed had told her Harmon's father was sick, and she'd decided to drop off a healing chicken broth for him on her way to the
Jessups
'. Most folks had no use for Jake
Leege
, but Hattie had already decided that a man who had fathered a fine boy like Harm must have plenty of good inside.

Harmon had been out several times to check on the pumps at the rice field. Hattie had been favorably impressed by his ability and his manners. "Where'd you learn how to work on these motors and such?" she'd asked him one day.

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "I don't know, really. I'm just
kinda
curious about the way things work. Machines pretty much work like they're supposed to. It's just common sense putting them together."

"Seems like uncommon sense to me," Hattie told him. "All these little gears and belts and the like. I expect there aren't many men who have an understanding about them the way you have."

The handsome young man actually blushed at the compliment. "It ain't really
nothing
," he insisted. "I don't know a blasted thing about farming."

"Not everybody's supposed to be a farmer," she said. "And thank the Lord for that. It's differences in folks that
keeps
life from boring us to death."

He laughed, and Hattie couldn't help but notice the perfection of his smile and the rough masculinity of his laughter. This young man was a heartbreaker, she thought. She suspected half the girls in town secretly swooned over his smile. "How come a hardworking man like you isn't married?" she asked, teasing him.

To her surprise, the smile was immediately wiped off his face. "I'm not the marrying kind," he said.

His voice was so
curt,
Hattie suspected there was more to it than that. "When the right girl comes along," she said lightly, "all men are the marrying kind."

If possible, Harm's expression became even
more bleak
. "Sometimes," he said quietly, "the right girl is looking for something other than what the man's got to offer."

Hattie nodded her understanding, feeling an affinity with Harmon. Being judged on things you couldn't control was the cruelest fate.

* * *

Thankful for the slight breeze outside his father's barn, Reed set up sawhorses and carefully used a chalk string to measure a couple of two-by-fours. His father came out of the barn and stared curiously at him.

"What are you putting together there?" Clive asked.

"It's a swing for Miss Hattie's porch," Reed replied.

As he picked up the saw and set the blade against the mark he'd made, his father added the weight of his foot to the far end of the board. "That's real nice of you to take the time, son," he said as Reed began sawing. "But knowing Miss Hattie's pride, I'd be thinking she would have paid a carpenter to build her a swing if she'd
been wanting
one."

Reed flushed slightly at the truth of his father's observation. "She didn't ask me to build it," he admitted. "It's a present."

Clive's eyebrows rose, but he made no comment.

Though he didn't want to examine his motive too closely, Reed still felt a strong need to explain himself. "It's a courting swing. If she's going to be sitting out on the porch with a beau, it had best be the most uncomfortable seating arrangement in town!"

His father laughed. "I remember feeling that way when the boys started coming out here to see Emma." He looked more closely at his son and added speculatively, "When did you become Miss Hattie's guardian?"

"It's just that now she's being courted…
"
he began clumsily
. "
I know if her father were alive…"
With a sigh of self-disgust, he turned to his father and said almost angrily, "Drayton comes out to her place to see her without a chaperone within five miles!"

His son's disapproval was so vehement that Clive had to chuckle. "I can't seem to recall any complaints from you about lack of chaperones when you go courting," he teased.

"This is entirely different," Reed said. "Miss Hattie is no match for
Ancil
Drayton. It's like a wolf paying call on the lamb."

"That tends to be the way it is between a man and a woman," Clive said as he helped Reed match the cut boards. "He chases her till she catches him, is how your mama says it."

Reed wasn't reassured. "The differences between those two aren't like the usual. Drayton's got seven children, and Hattie might as well be a green girl."

Watching his son pound nails with a vengeance, Clive speculated on Reed's feelings. "Hattie may not be worldly," he said after a minute, "but she's not ignorant. She's quick-witted and practical. If you're thinking that Drayton's intentions aren't what they should be, I'd say you're dead wrong."

"Drayton is a lazy, slipshod excuse for a farmer!"

Clive grunted. "I have
to
agree with you there, son. I've known
Ancil
all his life, and I wouldn't give two cents for any piece of land he's held for more than a season." Before his son could feel justified in his disapproval, Clive added, "But I do think he intends
to
marry Miss Hattie. I don't think he's courting her to make her fast and loose. There are plenty of flashy skirts around both younger and prettier if that was what he wanted."

Reed pounded the last nail in with a burst of fury. "There is absolutely nothing wrong with the way Miss Hattie looks," he said. "She's got nice thick hair that kind of glows in the sunshine. Her eyes just light up like sparklers, and she's always smiling. Her waist's small, and any fool can see that she's plenty curvy—and it ain't from starching the ruffles on her camisole!"