Stephanie Mittman (19 page)

“Seth?” he heard her voice out in the office, heard the fear in it that he had let her down again.

“Out in the kitchen,” he called quickly. He looked around. Things looked nice, welcoming. It was a good place to say he was sorry. A good place to start anew.

She stood in the doorway as if she were afraid to step over the threshold.

“Remember when you and Sarrie used to bake me cookies and you’d drag me back here between patients to eat them?” he asked.

“You were very good about that,” Abby admitted. “Even if you hated it, you never let Sarrie and me know.”

“I never hated it. Tea with you two was the highlight of my week,” he admitted. “I never told you two that, did I?”

“The highlight of your week! Oh, yes, I’m sure! We knew you had better things to do than sit sipping tea with us and—”

“I wish we’d done it every day,” he said, meaning every word.

Abby looked sad and he wanted to kick himself in the ass. One more thing to add to his list of resolutions—never make Abby sad again.

“Do you still bake cookies? Or are you too busy at the paper?” he asked.

“Often I bake them on Sundays with Pru’s children, and sometimes with Suellen, too,” she said. “Lately we’ve been experimenting with baking crosses to give out on Easter. Well, not exactly give out. Jed is planning on throwing them down from his flying machine when he clears the church.”

“Abby,” he said, trying to warn her that the likelihood of Jed’s flying over the church was as great as his ever attempting brain surgery in Eden’s Grove.

“I know, but crosses are as good to eat as any other shaped cookies,” she said. “And when they throw them out the window at me to see if they’ll do damage when dropped from a distance, at least they won’t hurt!”

“Well, next week do you think you might bake an extra batch for me and bring them on Monday for tea? I mean if you can take the time from the
Herald?
” he asked. He wanted her to know that he took her work seriously. He didn’t expect her to just drop everything to be with him, no matter how much he’d like to hear her say that.

“I baked several extra batches yesterday,” she said pointedly.

“I am really sorry about yesterday, Abby girl. But it was all your fault.”

“Mine?” He loved it when she lifted her eyebrow as if she were asking whether he really expected her to believe what he was saying.

“You were the reason I got drunk in the first place, running around the county with Frank Walker until all hours of the night….”

She said nothing, just stood there looking so lovely he could hardly breathe.

“And about that night,” he said, dancing his way around an apology, “I think I said some things that were highly inappropriate.”

Hard as it was to believe, she was even lovelier when she blushed.

“I did then, huh? I was hoping it had all been some sort of hallucination. Not the kiss, mind you, but …”

She fiddled nervously with the button at her neck.

“I really had no right,” he said, “being drunk and all. And the truth of it is, watching your hand playing with that button of yours, stone cold sober, I’m having trouble not doing it again.”

“Maybe we should eat lunch,” she said, a bit of a titter in her voice.

He smiled, watching its effect on her and loving every moment of it. “What did you bring?”

She looked at him blankly.

“For lunch?” he reminded her.

“Me? You invited me to lunch, remember?”

Talk about a lovesick fool. He’d set the table, he’d put the out-to-lunch sign on his door. What had he supposed they’d feast on—other than each other? He thought about what he had in his ice box—a pitcher of milk, a half dozen eggs, and a little leftover ham that Mrs. Youtt had brought by. She was still trying to thank him for taking care of Johnny. And he thought she was feeling a little guilty about the vote.

“Wait!” he said. He picked through the carton that Frank had left in the corner. “Aha! Oranges,
ma chérie
. And chocolates for dessert. And a leek for the main course?” he asked jokingly, holding one up.

Abby took off her coat and rolled up her sleeves. “Fine luncheon you’ve invited me to, Dr. Hendon,” she said as she found an apron in the bottom drawer and tied it about her tiny waist. “Inviting me to make my own meal.”

He leaned against the counter and watched her rifle through his cabinets, his ice box, his larder. She murmured about omelettes and soufflés and quiche Lorraine. Pans and bowls and wire things he had no idea what to do with materialized on his counter. And a slow, self-satisfied smile crossed his lips. This was a glimpse of the future, and it was his.

She had the oven heating and was examining the knives in his block when he came up behind her. Reaching around her, he slid the meat knife from its holder and handed it to her. “You know you really have to be careful with knives,” he said, her hair tickling his nose. “Maybe I better show you how it’s done.”

He reached around her, an arm on either side, his chin nearly resting on the top of her head. He put his hand over hers on the knife handle. “Like this,” he said, drawing the knife blade down the length of the ham.

He shifted his body and turned the ham to begin dicing it. He hoped that was what she wanted to do with it, because he wasn’t letting her go until it was in tiny pieces. With every stroke his inner arm brushed against her breast, and he hoped and prayed that the
stupid bustle that was pressing against his groin hid from her the extent to which he was enjoying his cooking lesson.

“I need to cut the leeks,” she said, but as she turned to get them, he trapped her in his embrace.

“Isn’t cooking together fun?” he asked her.

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. Her breathing was rapid, her chest rising and falling against his own.

“I always knew you liked to cook, but now I see why,” he said, taking the knife out of her hand and then lacing his fingers through hers.

“We cooked together once before,” Abby said, and he tried to remember when. It came to him sadly. It was the day before Sarrie died and they’d been frantically trying to make her some pudding, anything she might find easy to swallow.

“You were very good to Sarrie and to me,” he said, pressing against her until he knew he had her trapped against the counter. “I wish I had been better to you. But then I have the rest of my life to try, right?” he asked happily.

He could see she was suspicious.

“I mean it. I’m going to make it up to you. I’m going to devote myself to making you happy. I’m going to kiss … those … incredibly … soft …”

And then he was kissing her, and stone cold sober was better than any drunken kiss could ever have been. His senses reeled, his knees buckled. Like a starving man he lifted her and carried her to the table, pushing aside glasses and plates, not caring what fell to the floor
or what broke, and set her down right on the table to feast his eyes upon.

His eyes were not enough, so he leaned over her and kissed her lips and fought with her shirtwaist until it gave in to his desires, and he opened it so that he could see the beauty that Abby had become. And once again, looking wasn’t enough so he bent to kiss her breasts, and touch, and taste, and wonder if he could ever get enough of her.

If the button of his cuff hadn’t gotten caught in her hair, he wasn’t sure he’d have ever looked up and seen the fear in her eyes, mixing with the pleasure he knew she felt.
Too fast
he told himself.
You’re rushing her too fast
.

He righted himself and carefully closed her shirtwaist, grateful that in his rush he hadn’t ripped it. When he had her covered, he eased her back on her feet and mumbled how sorry he was, how she did things to him, how being around her he got carried away.

“The leek,” he said, producing it and handing it over to her so that her hand came around it. Idiotically, he couldn’t seem to let it go—whether it was the sight of her hand wrapped around its stalk, or the knowledge that she was going to chop its shaft to little pieces, he continued to hold it. And she moved her hand up on it, circling it, completely innocent and unaware of the implications of his standing there in the kitchen with her, moving the leek back and forth, up and down, within the confines of her grasp.

“I better get some more firewood,” he said, hurrying to the door and opening it for a gulp of cool spring air.

“There’s plenty here beside the stove,” she called out to him, but he was halfway across the yard, walking oddly and praying for relief.

Later, when they were finished with lunch and she was washing the dishes, Seth came up behind her again. It was dangerous to turn her back on him, and she was obviously one of those women who enjoyed living dangerously.

“Left hand or right hand?” he asked.

“What?”

“Would you rather have what’s in my left or my right hand?” he asked, obviously hiding something behind his back.

“Which one is better?” she asked.

“Left hand,” he said, but before he could pull it out she demanded what was in his right. “Why the right?” he asked.

“I know you’ll give me both and I want to save the best for last,” she said, trying to peek around his back.

“My article, then,” he said, handing it over to her.

“‘Pains of the Chest Region,’ “she read.

“I was careful to mention that racing hearts can be caused by factors other than disease,” he said, pointing to a paragraph near the end. “Like seeing someone half a block away, I think it was….”

“You did not put that in there, did you?” she asked, searching the paragraph he’d pointed to.

“I left out the part about holding my hand over your bosom to check the effect,” he said with a wink.

“You could have left it in,” she said with a shrug.

“And scandalized all your readers?” he asked, pretending to be shocked.

“Of course,” she said, knowing full well she would be the one to set the type and would have edited it out anyway.

“I’ll remember that next week when I do headaches. I’ll be sure to explain that when you’re sick with love you can give yourself a doozy of a headache with too much scotch and beer.”

At least, that was what she thought he said. It was hard to concentrate past “sick with love.”

“Don’t you want to know what’s in the other hand?” he asked and she tried to care, when the truth was that he had already given her, with just a few words, more than she had even dared to hope for.

He held out a pretty flowered box and lifted the lid for her. Inside was lovely pink stationery.

“For writing to Armand,” he said. Before her heart could sink too far, he added, “to say good-bye.”

“‘Dear Winnie’ says that it’s easy for a man to become too sure of himself, and that the minute he does—”

“I hear that she’s an old spinster who’s never even been kissed,” he said. “You want to take her advice, or mine?” He held the box out to her and waited patiently for her to take it.

“About Armand,” she started, but he put a finger over her lips and she had all she could do not to kiss it.

“I know,” he said softly. “You mean a lot to him. It’s not surprising. So let him down easy, Abby girl. Just so that you let him down.”

“Doc? You here? I got that bicycle out of the window, and the pick you wanted from the cellar!”

“I’m back here,” Seth called out to Frank while Abby looked frantically for a place to hide. Just a couple of days ago she was kissing Frank. Now here she was in Seth’s kitchen, her shirtwaist only half tucked in, her lips no doubt red from kissing.

She opened the back door and took a quick step out onto the porch and then a second one.

And then somehow she was on the ground, her elbow smarting, and before she could get up, there were Seth and Frank, both staring down at her, concern etched on both their faces.

“Jesus, Miss Abby!” Frank said. “Are you all right?”

She arched her back and felt a few other places hurt. She started to get up, cradling her elbow, but before she could even come to a full sitting position, Seth was crouching down beside her, feeling her arms, her legs, examining the scraped palms of her hands. “Anything
hurt especially? Besides your elbow? That’s probably just your ulnar nerve.”

“Her ulnar nerve?” Frank asked, leaning over her as though he too had some proprietary interest.

“Her funny bone,” Seth said with obvious superiority before turning his attention back to her. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” she said, pressing the heel of her hand against her head to stop the pain there. “I just didn’t see the steps, I guess.”

“You didn’t have your glasses on.” Seth shook his head at her and grimaced. “How many times do I have to tell you about those damn glasses? You could have broken something.”

He went on yelling at her while she looked around. The truth was, unless she turned her head, she couldn’t see him squatting next to her. Unless she tilted her head, she couldn’t see Frank standing above her. She stared at her fingers and moved her hand closer to her body until the fingers disappeared well before they touched her chest.

“Stop yelling at her,” Frank demanded. “Can’t you see you’re upsetting her?” A handkerchief appeared in front of her. She tipped her head way back and saw that it was Frank holding it out to her. Everyone has to tip their head to see above them, she told herself. God put man’s head on a neck so that he could turn it side to side and raise it up and down.

She touched her temple, but couldn’t see her hand.

“And you’ve got a headache, again, don’t you? If I prescribed medicine, you’d take it, right? So why, when an eye specialist prescribes glasses, don’t you wear
them? Does that ridiculous ‘Dear Winnie’ advise against ladies wearing spectacles?”