Stephanie Mittman (17 page)

Not
his
Abby, not yet. But not Frank’s yet, either.

Would Frank permit Abby to continue to write for
the paper as Seth would all but insist? It would be a damn shame if—

Well! And about time, he thought as he finally saw Frank’s buggy come meandering up the street. With the carriage hood up he couldn’t tell if the man was alone. It was late. It was dark. Frank Walker damn well better be alone!

He opened his door so that he could follow the course of the buggy with his eyes until it turned into the livery. A minute or two later Frank came out and headed farther up the block, alone.

Seth closed the door to the office and hurried down the street, his eyes on Frank, as the man went into McGinty’s Tavern. Did that mean a celebration?

He opened the door and followed Frank in.

Walker took a seat at the far end of the bar. Seth took one by the door. They nodded at each other, and after the barkeep had served Walker his scotch, Seth asked for the same. He matched him shot for shot, beer for beer, until he wondered whether either of them would be able to walk home.

And still they said nothing to each other. But Seth did hear him tell the barkeep he was buying that piece of land they’d talked about, building a house. And he did say something about being a papa that Seth couldn’t make out.

He didn’t need to. He’d heard enough. Abby probably had Frank’s head just as turned around as his own. He didn’t blame Frank for falling in love with Abby, and it was damn hard to go blaming her when he’d told her there was no “
us
.”

Was there a superlative beyond stupidest? Beyond
most moronic? deranged? Abby had left him deranged, like those poor, crazy patients in hospitals who surgeons felt free to operate upon to see just how the hell the brain worked.

With what little was left of the dignity he possessed, he slid from the barstool and looked around for his coat. It took him a couple of minutes to remember that he hadn’t worn one, and without a good-bye to anyone he left a few crumpled bills on the bar and headed back to his office.

The lights were still burning when he got there, which was a damn good thing, because his vision was playing tricks on him. Through the window he could swear that Abby was sitting at his desk, her head down on her arms.

It was a sin, what a little bit of scotch and a lot of hope could do to a man. Make him see things that weren’t there, feel things he wasn’t supposed to feel.

He let the door swing open until it hit a chair, hoping to scare off the ghost of Abidance Merganser. Instead it awakened it. Eyes red from crying blinked up at him.

“What happened?” he asked, heading straight for the coffee pot and lighting a flame beneath it. The last time he had been drunk around Abby he’d kissed her. He was afraid of what he’d do this time if he didn’t exert all of his willpower to control himself.

“He kissed me,” Abby said. “I swear I was all right with it until then. I wasn’t trying to spite you, or make you jealous, or anything. I was just going to go on with my life. Mine and Frank’s.” She sniffed and looked around his desk for a hankie. He reached in his pocket
and tossed one to her. He was not going to get close enough to touch her until he was stone cold sober.

“So he kissed you,” he said. “Who the hell hasn’t?”

“Have you been drinking?” She hiccuped twice and sniffed some more.

“Try holding your breath. And what the hell makes you think I’ve been drinking?” he asked.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Your fiancé and I might have had a few at McGinty’s,” he admitted. “Or more than a few.” The coffee was bitter. He swallowed it as if he’d been bitten by a rattler and it was the antidote.

“My fiancé?”

“Excuse me. One of your fianceés. The local one.”

“Frank?”

“There are more? Did you tell Emmet you’d marry him, too?”

“Frank told you I said that I’d marry him?” she asked. Did she think a man would keep marrying a woman as beautiful, as brilliant, as wonderful, as Abby a secret?

“He said he was buying that puny piece of land and building a house on it.” He took a swig of coffee and felt his head begin to clear some. “And he said something about children. Planning on a whole passel, Abby girl?”

“He is,” she said. “Would you like me to make you a fresh pot?”

“This is killing me just fine,” he said. “So when’s the big day?”

“There isn’t going to be one,” she admitted. “I told him it was a beautiful piece of land and he should buy
it and build a wonderful house with a porch and put a picket fence around it all and live happily ever after there. But not with me.”

He poured the dregs of the coffee into his cup and swallowed it before he spoke. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t love him. Because my heart doesn’t skip a beat when he smiles, or race when I see him from half a block away. I know you don’t want to hear this, don’t want me to—”

“Do I do that to you?” he asked, giving her his most brilliant smile. “Is your heart skipping a beat?”

“Don’t tease me, Seth. I’m going to be an old maid because I can’t let someone hope for what they’ll never get from me. Frank said that—”

“I don’t care what the hell Frank said,” he said. He put down the coffee cup and came over to crouch beside where she sat at the desk. “I want to know what you said.”

“I told him he was too good a man to settle for what he could get from me. That he deserved to be loved and cherished by a woman that would give him her whole heart. And that I couldn’t do that.”

“Because of Armand?” he asked, making sure to get her entire regiment of beaux out of the way. “Has he written to you swearing undying love? Has he asked you to marry him?”

She shook her head.

“Has he told
you Je t’adore, chérie?
Has he sworn
la belle passion?
”

“Stop teasing me,” she said, her lower lip quivering so that he could hardly resist it. “This is hard enough.”

“Ah, then,” he said, rising just enough so that his lips
could meet hers. “Let me make it easier. Let me make it very easy.” And as he spoke, he stood with her, and pressed himself against her with the urgency of too many years and too much sorrow.

“Seth?” she asked when he pulled his lips from hers long enough to find the top button of her dress and loosen it. “Are you still drunk?”

“Not so much that I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said, playing with the bodice of her dress. “See, I can unbutton a button with just one hand. Two, even.”

“You can break a heart with less than that,” she said, gently pushing him away.

“I am the one you love, aren’t I?” he asked, holding on to her arm as she backed away. Beneath the silly leg-o’-mutton sleeve was an arm so slender, so fragile he was afraid that a strong grip could break it in two. “Just tell me that and I’ll see you home safely.”

“Why?” she asked. “What does it matter?”

“You won’t tell me? Hell. Then tell me this. If I had another pick and shovel, what would you say to going prospecting?”

“I’d say you and Frank Walker are going to have worse headaches than I do, come morning.”

“Oh, Abby girl,” he said, taking her face in his hands. “Is your head hurting you again? Come and we’ll get you some powder for it.”

Abby took his hand and followed him into the examining room. She loved the feel of her hand within his, just as she’d loved the feel of his lips against her own. And even if this sudden affection was the result of too much to drink, she loved every ounce of it. He drank
whiskey, and she drank Seth. And both were intoxicating and could lead them into trouble.

But for tonight she didn’t care about trouble. It had hurt her nearly as deeply as it had hurt Frank to tell him that she could never marry him, that she was in love with someone else. She’d saved face by letting him think it was Armand. After Frank was happily married, she figured she could let Armand catch the influenza and die and then she could mourn him and grieve for her lost love for the rest of her life.

Unless Seth had truly come to his senses. Of course, he’d have to be sober for that to mean anything.

What a prospect! Never to be truly and thoroughly loved. Never to find out what it must feel like to be one with the man you love, to hold his love inside you and carry his baby in your womb.

He put some headache powder in an envelope and sealed it. Then he took some more and spooned it into a glass, added water, and handed it to her to drink with a look of such concern on his face that he seemed to think she was dying.

“It’s just a headache,” she said, drinking the glassful of medicine and handing it back to him. “Don’t look so glum. It’s been so nice to see you smile tonight.”

This time his smile was broad enough to send his dimples deep into his cheeks. “Is your heart racing?” he asked, putting his hand just above the swell of her breast. “Why, I believe it is.”

She tried to calm herself, but when she couldn’t simply will her heart to slow down, and Seth was all but snickering, she said, “It must just be the medicine.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But what accounts for mine?” He
took her hand and put it on his chest. As she felt the racing of his heart, he closed his eyes for a minute.

When he opened them again he took her hand and placed a kiss in her palm. “Looks all healed,” he said, gently pressing on the tiny scar near the heel of her hand.

“I’m very resilient,” she said, closing her fingers over her palm an order to keep his kiss there forever.

“Like a reed,” he said, spanning her waist with his hands.

“No, like an oak. I just grow a burl around my injuries and don’t let them fell me.”

“I have a great fondness for oaks,” he said. His hand cupped her breast and one finger ran over the fabric that covered her nipple. “And acorns,” he added.

“You’re drunk,” she said, but she didn’t remove his hand. Drunk or sober, in love with her or not, she wanted him, wanted to feel his hands on her body, his breath in her hair.

“Only with you. You intoxicate me, Abby girl.” He played with the buttons between her breasts, opening one, opening another. “You intoxicate the hell out of me.”

“Well, whatever the reason, you’re very drunk, Dr. Hendon.”

“Better me than you, Abby girl. After all, I wouldn’t want to be accused of taking advantage of you.” He slipped his hand within the bodice of her blouse, and his fingers found her nipple and did a dance of love against it.

But it wasn’t love. It was scotch, or beer, or gin, and
she swallowed against her shame as her body responded nonetheless, as if it didn’t care that he didn’t love her. At least for the moment, he needed her.

“Oh, Lord, Abby!” he said, his lips against her cheek, his breath still smelling from McGinty’s as he searched out her lips once again.

“We can’t do this while you’re still drunk,” she said, finally coming unwillingly to her senses.

“Why not?” he asked, smiling a smile that said he was well aware of how much she was enjoying every kiss, every stroke, every touch. “Afraid you’re taking advantage of me in my weakened condition?”

“Yes,” she said, the word sounding choked when she got it out.

“Leave it to you to get things backward again. A man gets a woman drunk to have his way with her, not the other way around.”

“Well, you know how I twist things,” she said, straightening out her shirtwaist, buttoning up the buttons, unable to look him in the eye.

“All right. I’ll see things your way from now on. And I’ll do this right, just as you deserve.” He bowed from the waist and took her hand. “Miss Abby, would you do me the honor of accompanying me on a buggy ride tomorrow after church?”

“Frank already showed me the prairie and the brook and the oaks,” she said, playing on the jealousy that had gotten her this far. “What are you going to show me?”

“He showed you a tree,” he said. “But was it a fig?” He winked at her, and when she stood there mutely, he added, “Cause you know what they do with fig leaves …”

She thought she did, and felt the red creep up from her throat until both cheeks burned.

“Wanna see what’s hidden behind them?”

He’d thrown up twice before he’d been able to get up out of his bed. And the only thing that got him up was the sun. It was shining so brightly that he had to close the curtains to save his brain from bursting through his skull.

To drink is to die one death too many, he thought as he crawled back under his blankets and held his stomach because he didn’t dare touch his head. Heaven help anyone who needed doctoring today. Anyone besides himself, that is.

And if the headache, the nausea, the sensation that the room was spinning around him, wasn’t enough, there was the memory of what he’d said to sweet, innocent Abby to make him really sick to his stomach.
Wanna see what’s behind a fig leaf?
No matter how drunk he was, he couldn’t have said that, could he? To Abby?

It had all been a dream, maybe, or a nightmare. Except that he could remember the taste of her sweetness, the feel of soft skin and firm flesh against his palm, her nipple between his fingertips.

Did he really ask her if she wanted a private anatomy lesson? He groaned and rolled over onto his stomach, his head over the side of the bed, and heaved into the bowl he’d brought with him to bed one more time.