Mittman, Stephanie (9 page)

"Sweetie,"
Annie said to Hannah in the softest voice he'd ever heard, a voice that flowed
like golden honey from lips Noah wanted like the dickens to touch, "I don't
have any more cookies with me."

The
sun was hitting her hair, turning it into burnt sugar strands, and Noah could
hardly pay attention to the words she was saying. He'd like to see that hair
tumbling down her back, her naked back, taffy strands teasing tanned skin. But
of course, her back would be paler, untouched by the sun....

"Mr.
Eastman?" Annie was staring at him as she lowered Julia to the ground. So,
for that matter, was Charlie Morrow's wife, Risa. There was a funny smile on
the other woman's face, a smile that implied she had been reading his thoughts.
He shifted Hannah in his arms, hoping that if his Sunday pants were revealing
any of the desire he was feeling, Hannah's squirming body would both hide it
and make it go away. It had been so long since physical feelings had been any
part of his life he'd almost forgotten how to handle them.

"Mr.
Eastman? Are you all right?" It was Annie once again, her eyes searching
his face, the tip of her tongue touching her upper lip. It reminded him of a
butterscotch-colored kitten, that sudden flash of pink between her lips— lips
he knew he was going to taste sooner or later.

"I...
It's just... with Hannah running off..." Damn and damn again! He was
absolutely incapable of uttering a complete sentence in her presence. Like some
eight-year-old caught with his hand in the candy jar, he could only stammer and
look guilty. Not that he didn't have good reason to feel guilty with the
thoughts that were barreling into his head unbidden. In his mind he saw her
fine straight hair like a curtain against the skin of her back. She was close
enough for him to smell the vanilla scent that surrounded her. His mouth
watered.

"You
did scare your daddy," she said to the child in his arms. "Can you
tell him that you're sorry?"

"Sissy,
I don't think a simple apology—" Winestock began. The good minister had
slipped again and called her Sissy instead of Miss Morrow. He'd heard that she
was spoken for, that there was an understanding between her and Winestock.
Though he would have preferred that they weren't, it seemed that the rumors
about their impending marriage were true. For now. But you couldn't be expected
to honor another man's claim if he hadn't actually staked it. And whatever his
reasons were, Miller Winestock had not made any announcement regarding his
affection for the lovely Miss Morrow, nor had there been any formal word of his
intentions.

"Samuel!
Put it down! Now!" The horrid boy held a wriggling centipede not more than
two inches from little Julia's face. Her eyes were wide, but to her credit she
wasn't flinching. Peter grabbed his son's hand and the bug went flying. It
sailed through the air and landed on the puffed sleeve of Annie's starched
white blouse.

"Here,
I'll—" the minister began, pushing himself between Annie and Noah and
reaching for her arm with pasty-white fingers.

Before
Winestock had finished his sentence she had formed an O with her thumb and
forefinger and flicked the bug from her dress. "Hmm?" she asked,
looking up in surprise.

"I
was only offering to help you," the minister said. He seemed mildly
disappointed, perhaps even appalled. "But you seem not to require
assistance."

She
was no hothouse pansy, this Annie Morrow. If a hundred crawling legs on her
didn't lift one of those lovely eyebrows, nothing would shake her, Noah
figured. It didn't seem to him that Winestock had the proper appreciation for a
woman who could hold her own on a farm where any moment might demand a cool
head and a steady hand. He didn't think the minister had the proper
appreciation for much about Annie Morrow besides her undisputed cooking skills.
If he had, he'd have told the world she was his a long time ago.
Well, he
who hesitates is lost, as the old saying goes. Sorry Winestock, but you lose.

"So
bugs don't bother you?" he asked, trying to keep up a normal conversation
while his whole being was rocking to the core at just being within three feet
of her. It was his first full sentence, and it was about insects. He could have
kicked himself.

"Mr.
Eastman," she said with a laugh that made his heart dance inside his
chest, "I'm a farm girl. Bein' afraid of bugs, likin' to stay clean,
swoonin' at the thought of wringin' a chicken's neck, and wearin' little strap
sandals—those are all privileges reserved for city women. I ain't had such luck
yet." Her eyes flew to Winestock with such longing that she might just as
well have run Noah's heart through a cider press and squeezed it dry.

The
first note was in the flour Bart brought home with him from Hanson's
Mercantile. Annie was halfway through making the cookies she had promised
Hannah and Julia when she reached into the sack for some flour to dust her
cutting board and hit something that crackled. She looked into the bag. The
corner of a piece of paper stood sticking up from the white flour like a flag
planted atop a mountain by some brave explorer. Her hands were covered in flour
and she hesitated, realized that the paper was already coated, and reached in,
pulling it out gently so it didn't rip.

It
was a small slip of paper, folded carefully in two. On the outside was her
name, written in the neatest Spencerian hand she had ever seen. She tried to
remember whether she had ever received a note addressed to her before. Of
course, she'd gotten one whenever one or another of the children had misbehaved
in school, or when Mrs. Winestock needed something done for the church, even a
thank-you here or there. Annie looked at the note again. This was different.
Besides the fact that it was coated in Hanson's best all-purpose flour, it was
addressed to
Annie Morrow.
Not Sissy.
Annie.

Only
one person called her by her given name. Only one person would have put her
given name on a piece of paper and slipped it into her grocery order: Noah
Eastman. She put the note, still folded, on the edge of the table and returned
to her baking. Anything concerning Mr. Eastman could certainly wait. There was
a sheet of little girl cookies in the oven almost ready to come out, one
waiting to go in, and enough dough left to make her nephews some cowboys and
Indians.

Cooking
for seven people over the years had left her unable to make small batches of
anything. Her math was good enough to cut down a recipe, should she ever
actually use one, but somehow her brain could never tell her hands that all her
babies had flown the coop and she wasn't cooking for an army anymore. Well,
with Risa expecting again and Willa, though Bart had never actually said as
much, likely to be carrying, there'd be five little ones come a year from now
to be watching over and cooking for.

Not
on this old cookstove, though. Oh, the pies she could turn out with Miller's
new Sterling range! Elvira had hardly used it before she'd passed on, and since
her death Miller took his meals out. The town, especially the spinsters in it,
took pity on the widower and invited him over or brought food in. His range was
practically brand new.

At
Miller's place the pie safe wouldn't have to be draped with cheesecloth to keep
out the dust. And she'd be just a few blocks from Charlie and Risa and not far
at all from Della and the boys. If she married Miller in six months or so, and
that was giving him a little extra time to break the news to the congregation
slowly, she'd be close enough to Risa to help with the birth of the new baby.

Willa,
of course, would be farther away, but, it being her first, Annie could still
get out to the farm with plenty of time to sit around and wait for nature to
run its course.

The
kitchen was stifling. She'd kept the windows closed in an effort to keep the
dirt off her cookies, but she could feel sweat dripping out of every pore and
turning the flour on her hands to glue.

Trying
to pull herself together, she rinsed them in a basin of water that sat by the
sink, getting cloudier and cloudier as the morning wore on. Her mind might be
on a hundred other things, but her nose told her, as it always did, that her
cookies were done. The sweet warm smell of butter and sugar melting filled the
kitchen and softened her fears, as baking had always done from the time she was
little.

Waves
of heat blasted out of the oven and she backed away from the stove. She was
going to have to open a window after all, she thought, as she removed eight
perfect little girls from the oven and placed the new sheet gingerly inside.
How Francie had loved these cookies! Annie had already received two letters
from her. In them Francie had thanked Annie over and over again for making her
go to New York, but both of them had ended with a veiled plea to let her return
home and make a life for herself in Van Wert now that she had seen what the
rest of the world had to offer.

As
if there was a life to be had in Van Wert. And she always asked about Noah
Eastman and his girls.

The
note still sat on the edge of the counter, the heat in the kitchen wilting its
edges. Maybe it was an apology for embarrassing her at the picnic on Sunday. He
certainly owed her one. Miller had been sour the rest of the afternoon. He'd
gone on and on about how Hannah should have been punished for running away and
he didn't know what was wrong with young people these days. Annie hadn't been
able to tell if he was referring to Mr. Eastman or his daughter, since Miller
always held himself so much older than everyone around him.

He
kept bringing up the age difference between himself and Annie as if it were
some huge barrier between the two of them, a hurdle to be approached cautiously
and measured carefully to make sure it was surmountable. That was the word he'd
used: surmountable. She'd had to ask him what it meant and he'd given her the
same look he always did, as if he was disappointed with her lack of education.
He knew as well as everyone else in Van Wert that she had left school to raise
her siblings. So why did he seem surprised when she hadn't heard some word
before? Who'd he think she was likely to hear it from? Bart? Ethan?

The
screen door creaked and slapped.

"Bakin'?"
Bart said when he came in from the fields for lunch. "Hell of a hot day to
be bakin'. It's hotter'n Hades in here, Sissy. Why ya got all the windows
closed?"

With
him came a heavenly breeze and Annie realized he'd left the door open. She
threw a towel over the cookie rack and sighed. Dirt. Dirt everywhere. Dirt all
the time. She wished she was already married to Miller and living in town. At
least there the wind didn't sail through your house and bring all the dust of
the prairie along with it.

"Shut
the door," she told her brother. "Does all of Ohio have to be on that
table for every meal?"

"I
never seen it as dry as this," Bart said. "Washed up at the pump and
before my hands were dry they were fulla dirt again. Guess I'll try again in
here."

When
he finished he pulled the towel off her cooling cookies and dried his hands. He
noticed something on the floor, and as he bent to pick it up Annie realized it
was the note from Mr. Eastman. It must have blown off the table when Bart
opened the door.

"That's
for me," she said, going to take it from his hand.

"'Annie
Morrow,'" he read. "What is this, anyway?" He opened it before
she could pull it away from him. "What is this supposed to mean?"

She
should have read it the moment she found it. Read it or destroyed it. Anything
but left it for Bart to find. What if it was about Francie? Francie would never
forgive her for letting Bart see something personal. "What does it
say?"

"It
says, 'Your skin is the color of baked bread.'"

"What?"

Bart
looked at the note again and then handed it over to his sister. Sure enough,
that was what he had written. Even Annie could read those words.
Her skin?
Noah Eastman was talking about her skin?

"Where'd
that come from? Who sent it?" Bart asked.

There
was no signature, thank goodness. "Risa must be feeling playful with the
new baby coming," Annie said, trying to sound unruffled while her blood
raced and her heart pounded against her apron so hard it was a wonder Bart
couldn't see it. What in the world could he be talking about?
Your skin is
the color of baked bread?
"It was in the flour sack. Sit down and I'll
get your dinner."

She
shooed him out of the kitchen and went directly to the new sack of sugar
waiting to be opened on the counter. She ripped it open and stuck her hand in.
Sure enough,
crackle, crackle.
This one said her hair was like burnt
sugar swirled atop a beautiful cake.

She
jammed the note in her pocket and spooned up a plate of sausages, sweet
potatoes, and greens for Bart, her hands working automatically while her mind
danced around the two notes that now rested in her pocket.

She'd
ordered beans from Hanson's, too. She didn't even want to think about what
that
note might say.

Re-covering
the cookies with the towel Bart had used, she heard him say something from the
table in the dining room, but couldn't make it out. Her head was spinning with
a hundred thoughts. Why, those notes sounded like he was trying to court her!
But that was ridiculous. She was marrying Miller Winestock. Everyone knew that,
even if the minister hadn't said it in so many words. And if Noah Eastman was
interested in any Morrow, it was Francie. Weren't they exchanging letters? And
weren't all Francie's letters to her full of questions about Mr. Eastman and
his girls?