Courting Miss Hattie (4 page)
"None of that," he scolded. "I won't have you tempting me beyond what I can bear."
"How much, exactly, can you bear, Mr. Tyler?" she asked, walking away from him toward the pond with an exaggerated sway in her hips.
Reed followed her, far enough back to enjoy fully her teasing display. When she had almost reached the water's edge, she stopped at the sight of a small wildflower bursting through the soil. Bending down to pick it, she deliberately thrust her bottom in the air in a very unladylike fashion. Smiling, Reed walked up and took the offered bait, laying a large tanned hand on her slim-hipped backside.
Bessie Jane straightened immediately as a sultry exclamation of feigned surprise escaped her lips. Turning, she moved eagerly into his arms, her eyes darkening with smoky invitation. "Reed! I don't want to wait a year and a half. I don't even want to wait until dark."
"Sweetheart! What if your daddy should see us?"
"He's back at the house."
"I really shouldn't take such liberties with you before we're married."
"Then let's get married. Let's get married today, Reed. I don't think I can wait any longer."
Reed was not immune to the feel of her warm, sweet-smelling body against his. He ran his hand down her spine and splayed his fingers over her buttocks.
"Yes, Reed," she whispered. "You want me, you know you do."
"I do want you, Bessie Jane," he said in a tortured voice. "But I can't have you. Not now, not before I've bought my land, before we're married. I can't risk giving you a baby."
She pulled away from him angrily. "That's exactly where I stand in your plans. First your land, then your marriage and children. Bessie Jane comes in a distant third."
"Sweetheart, that's not so. Everything I do, I do for you, for us." He reached out to touch her, but she turned from him. "I know it's hard for you. It's difficult for me too." He stood behind her, his hands gently massaging her shoulders as if to make his words easier to bear. "Believe me, Bessie Jane, I understand about
needs,
and I've told you I can help you with that. I've heard things and read things. I can give you a woman's pleasure without having to risk a baby."
"Don't talk to me about
needs,"
she snapped. "What I need is to be married!"
He set his jaw firmly. "Now you're being unreasonable."
She whirled to face him, her arms folded across her chest. "My mother told me, you let a man have his way with you, and he'll never marry you. He'll make up every excuse under the sun, but he'll never walk you down the aisle. I would never have believed it of you, Reed Tyler, but it's apparently the truth."
"It is not the truth," he snapped, annoyed with such nonsense. "I have every intention of marrying you. Everybody in the county knows my intentions. Do you think your father would let us come out here alone if he doubted my sincerity?"
"It's not my father's doubts you have to worry about—it's mine. I'm already seventeen. Most of my friends are planning weddings right now, and I, the most sought-after girl in the
county,
I can't even set the date!"
Shaking his head in exasperation, Reed tried to make her see reason. "It's our future I'm thinking about, not what some other girls in the county might do. I want to give you a good life, Bessie Jane. I want us to start out ahead, not trying to work ourselves out of a ditch."
"Mr. Tyler, I will not have my wedding decided by the fate of a crop! You either intend to marry me this fall or you do not."
"I have explained that to you time and time again, Bessie Jane," he said, straining for patience. "If I can't provide for you, if I don't own my own land, I will not marry you."
* * *
With her arm threaded through the handle of her egg basket and a pan of shelled corn in her hand, Hattie made her way to the chicken coop, scattering feed as she went. She paused outside the door of the henhouse to wave to Reed, who was sharpening the plow near the barn. Even in the coolness of the spring day, sweat plastered his shirt to his body and made his thick black hair gleam with lights. Things were going to work out for Reed, Hattie was sure of it. He was like a brother to her, she told herself, and he deserved to be happy. If she could help that along, well, there was no law against it.
Walking into the henhouse, she found two hens still sitting. "'Morning, Hazel,
Earline
," she said cheerfully. "You girls got me some eggs this morning?"
Only the laying hens and her rooster, Jackanapes, had names. She wasn't about to get so personal with some broiler she'd be putting in the frying pan. As it was, when one of the old hens stopped
laying
, it was mighty hard to send her to the stew pot. Hattie usually resolved the quandary by finding out
who
was ailing and fixing them a nice chicken soup. As long as she didn't have to eat those old friends herself, it was all right.
She remembered when she was a girl—their old cow Sally had run
dry,
and her daddy had said he was going to send her to the slaughterhouse. Hattie had cried and pleaded with him until her mother had taken a switch to her and sent her to bed. The next morning at breakfast her father had said, "Hattie, I've been thinking all night about old Sally. This is a farm, and when an animal eats and don't produce, we just got to be rid of it. But Sally…
Well, she birthed three good calves for me and been providing the milk on this table for nigh onto ten years. I don't expect that old cow owes me nothing."
Hattie had cried for joy, sobbing in her daddy's arms, though her mother had called it a "sentimental bit of foolishness." Old Sally was put out to pasture, and she was probably the only milk cow in the history of
As Hattie carefully checked through the hay in the nesting boxes for hidden eggs, she thought about that first summer without Daddy. Her mama had never been a strong woman. She had been dependent on someone all her
life,
and her husband's death had left her in a void of uncertainty. She'd been so bowed down with grief that she spent most of those first few months in bed. She leaned heavily on Hattie, a frightened and sorrowing teenager who day after day saw her mother weaving through anger, bitterness, and tears. Mama could no longer carry on a conversation without crying.
Hattie had to finish the crop that year, something she had never done. And she wouldn't have made it without Reed. He was only fourteen at the time, wasn't even shaving, but he was there every day for her. He pulled his weight, and more. When they finally got that cotton in, they just looked at each other and started laughing. Hattie couldn't remember ever feeling so tired or having such a sense of accomplishment. She and Reed just kept
laughing,
team running down their faces, aching-in-pain type of laughing.
The next three years she leased the land to Hiram
Weger
, and he hired Reed to tend it. When
Weger
gave it up, Jack Coats leased it for a year. He had his own boys to work it, so Reed was out of a job. He'd gone down to his uncle, south of
Helena
, to work in the rice. The next year he came to Hattie and asked if he could lease it himself. The way Hattie figured
it,
Reed had been working the Colfax land for fifteen of the last sixteen years. It seemed to her that after that long a time, a man deserved to own it.
She squinted at the sun as she let herself out of the henhouse. In a couple of years Reed would own this land. She would miss farming it, but a little knot of anxious enthusiasm stirred inside her. Maybe she'd continue farming somewhere else with another man at her side.
* * *
Reed adjusted the blade carefully back on the plow, satisfied with the job he'd done. He pulled off his old straw hat and wiped the sweat from his brow with his sleeve. Gazing up at the sun to gauge the time, he
flopped
the hat back on his head.
A high-pitched squeal caught his attention, and he looked across the barnyard to see Miss Hattie washing down her pigs near the hog wallow. She set quite a store by those black-and-white
Hampshires
of hers, he thought, as well she should. The sow must weigh seven hundred pounds, and she'd had thirteen shoats at her last
farrow
. Miss Hattie was some farmer. Her
pigsty was cleaner than some women's houses, and her animals were among the healthiest in the county.
"What's ailing that old sow, Miss Hattie?" he called across the yard.
She looked up from her task and smiled. From this distance, all he could see was the dipping brim of her sunbonnet and that row of gleaming white teeth. Miss Hattie did have one amazing smile.
"This old sow's just dirty and lazy these days," she called back, laughing.
He walked over to the pigsty and leaned against the fence. "
You going
to breed her this spring?"
Hattie nodded. "In another week or so, I suspect she'll be ready."
"You want me to ride over to
Britts
Hollow and see if they'll let us use that old Hampshire to stud again?"
"Nope." Hattie smiled broadly once more.
"Remember that fine-looking young boar I sold to
Mose
Whimsley
? He's going on ten months now, so I'm going to breed him back."
It was obvious to Reed that Hattie was absolutely delighted with her livestock's prospects, and he readily agreed to get the young boar for her when the time came.
Despite Reed's smile, Hattie saw something strange in his expression. "What's ailing you, Plowboy? I've been thinking all day that you might
be needing
a spring tonic."
His answering chuckle was genuine. "No, thank you, Miss Hattie. I just had a bit of a spat with Bessie Jane. Nothing too serious, I suspect."
"A spat?"
"Bessie Jane and I have a misunderstanding about calendars. Mine has four seasons; hers only has today, tomorrow, and next week."
Hattie's eyes lit up with humor. "They say sweethearts and squabbles are like flowers and rain. Takes both to make it springtime."
Reed shook his head as if to belittle any problems he might have. "I expect you're right, Miss Hattie. And it's surely nothing for me to be wasting my morning worrying about."
"I saw you two at church last Sunday," Hattie said, smiling like a proud parent. "Can't think of a more attractive couple that I've ever seen. You're so big and dark, and she's so tiny and blond, you're just a sight walking across the churchyard together."
Reed smiled at her fanciful description. "I only wish it were that easy." He jerked off his hat and ran a hand through his hair, as if the motion might make his thoughts clearer. "She doesn't understand all that it takes to make a go of things. She thinks we should just get married and everything will work itself out."
Hattie pondered that for a moment,
then
nodded. "Sometimes it's that way. People do marry without having much of a plan for things, and most times it works out just fine."
"'Just fine' isn't enough for me, Miss Hattie. You know about my dreams for this place, for growing rice and all. That's just not going to happen if I take on a wife I can't afford." He sighed disgustedly, trying to gather his words. "Bessie Jane likes pretty things. I expect she wants a fine house and all the best. I want her to have those things, but the farm has to come first."
"She's young, Reed," Hattie said. "It's hard for her to see past the wedding day. Once you're married and she takes on her responsibilities, she'll be able to understand better."
He grinned wryly. "You're right about her not seeing past the wedding day. That's all she thinks about, and she was hopping mad when I said we'd need to wait out two crops."
Hattie nodded, seeing the younger woman's point. "That
is
a long time for a woman to wait."
"Not you too!" Reed cried in exasperation. "You think I should marry her when I'm no more than a sharecropper with a few dollars in the bank? A man's got his pride, you know. I don't want anyone thinking she's marrying down."
Hattie knew about male pride, especially Reed Tyler's variety. His family lived just over the next ridge. They were good, hardworking salt-of-the-earth people, but the
Tyler
farm was only one rocky little hill. With nine children to feed, it was no wonder they sent out their children to work when they were still young enough for the schoolroom. Hattie knew that Reed wanted better than that for his children, better than that for himself. "Why don't I go ahead and sell you the land, Reed?" she suggested. "You've got most of the money already saved, and you can pay me off when you can. I trust you for it."
He sighed and shook his head. "You may trust me, Miss Hattie, but how can I trust myself? What if I have a bad year? Two bad years, or a whole slew of them, is not unheard of. I'll have Bessie Jane and probably some
children,
and I might have to let you down."
"I'd understand that."
"You might understand it, but
understanding don't
pay the fiddler. This farm is all you've got, Miss Hattie. Your daddy would roll over in his grave if you trusted it to anybody who wasn't family."
