The Sleeping Night (27 page)

Toward the end of the week, she knelt in her garden, pulling weeds. Isaiah was on the roof, working like a demon, as he had been all week. He hadn’t 1ingered in the evenings, and Angel didn’t ask him to stay—he was as scared as she was by the moment they’d shared in her back yard. He never met her eyes, never let their hands touch, never even asked for a glass of water. He just worked from morning till night, when he climbed down, visibly exhausted, and walked home. He seemed determined to finish the roof as quickly as possible—had even quit Mrs. Pierson’s job to get it done. At the present rate, he’d be done in another day or two.

Then he would be gone.

Angel yanked a tangle of bindweed from between stalks of corn. The thought of Isaiah leaving made her feel hollow, almost breathless. No more hammering overhead as she fixed supper. No more quiet chats under cover of deep twilight, no more of the tales he shared of the faraway places he’d seen, the places that had given his voice its new cadence, his mind its new turns.

She straightened and brushed her hair from her face, pressing one hand against the small of her back. Isaiah clung to the edge of the roof, nailing shingles. He was shirtless beneath worn overalls, and the sun arced off the red-hued brown of his arms in waves. Muscles rippled in his forearm and back, tensing, releasing, tensing, and his well formed head glistened with a sheen of perspiration. All the outdoor work was turning the temples of his hair a glittery red and she knew he hated it.

The luxury of admiring him without observation was too rich to resist. A long stretch of leg braced against the ladder. He was strong as John Henry, and just as big. She had not really known until he’d stood next to her, holding her, just how much bigger he was than any man she’d ever known.

That kiss.

It lived in every turn of her joints, her toes and wrists, neck bones and hips. She called up the small deep sound that had come from his throat a hundred times a day, remembering.

Isaiah halted his hammering, wiped his brow with an arm and glanced over to where she knelt amid the young plants, under the dappled shadows of an elm. In the instant that his eyes caught hers, she could swear he knew what she was thinking—not only of that single, stolen kiss, but other pictures, too, visions of them tangled together, arms and legs and hands as well as lips. It made her belly twitch.

When he looked away, slamming the hammer hard against the roof—slam. Slam! slam!—Angel felt her cheeks flushed and she lowered her eyes to her task. When she reached for another weed, her hands trembled. The hammering did not resume as she had expected, but Angel kept her head bent, kept it bent even when Isaiah’s worn boots showed in the corner of her vision, at the edge of the garden.

She leaned back on her heels, head bowed, waiting for him to speak. When the moment stretched, with him standing and Angel waiting, into a heavy, loaded thing as full as any noise, she finally raised her eyes. First to his hands, held loosely at his sides, those enormous, silk-skinned, elegant hands. Then to his collarbone. At last she looked at his face, to the deep and expressive eyes. There was sorrow there, sorrow and a hunger as deep as her own. “I got some chores to finish up for my mama. I’ll come on back later.”

Angel nodded. His step was heavy as it carried him away from her, but his head was still high, his shoulders square. As she watched him, she wanted to weep with frustration and loss—wanted to cry after him—
don’t you see?

But he did see. That was the trouble.

Rather than brood, which was really her first impulse, Angel left the weeding for another day, and went inside to cook. She turned on the radio for company and brought out pans and spoons and bowls. Cooking always made her feel better, and today was no exception.

By the time Isaiah returned, she’d made a feast—chicken and gravy and greens, a bowl of butter beans left from the day before, and a fat, juicy carrot cake bursting with pineapple.

For him, she finally admitted to herself. She stood at the back screen door as he climbed up the ladder without speaking her. Clouds hung heavy on the horizon and Angel knew there’d be rain within the hour. She could bide her time.

Taking the book of poetry he’d left her, she wandered out to the front porch to settle in and wait. In thirty minutes, the sky was darkening. She glanced up, smiled to herself, and kept reading.

When the rain started, she closed the book of poetry and went inside to check the food she’d left in the warm oven. The scent of paprika and nutmeg escaped on a wave of steam, and she pinched off a bit of crisp batter lying golden in the center of the pan. It was good.

Humming along with the radio, she filled glasses with ice and bits of mint and set the table. Outside, the rain and Isaiah’s hammer warred over which could make the most noise. She checked the chicken once again, then grabbed a hat to cover her head and stepped out into the rain.

Isaiah still clung with ludicrous ferocity to the roof, rain pouring over his face and bare arms. “Isaiah High,” she cried, “come down from there before you break your neck!”

“In a minute!” he called without looking at her, and reached in his pocket for a nail. The gesture was ill-timed. As he let go, his foot slipped, caught the guttering and knocked it loose. Desperately trying to right himself, he grabbed for the ladder and the edge of the roof, letting hammer and nails scatter. For an instant, he hovered, frozen against the nothingness of air and pouring rain—but the thrust was too far in motion to stop. The ladder, with Isaiah clinging mightily, toppled to the ground with a crash.

Angel cried out and jumped off the porch into the mud, running to his side. He lay still, his leg twisted in the ladder. One of the rungs had broken with the impact of his foot. His eyes were closed.

Rain streamed over her shoulders as she knelt next to him. “Isaiah!”

“I’m all right,” he said gruffly.

Alive. Relief made her arms tremble. “Can you get up?”

He shook her arm away, “I’m fine. Go on and get out of this rain.”

“Don’t be so stubborn. Let me help you.”

“No!” He turned to his side, dragging his leg out of the rungs, and pulled himself into a sitting position. The rain picked up, falling now in torrents that soaked them both. Shaking her head, she grabbed his arm. She had to shout to be heard. “Get up and let’s get inside before we both catch our deaths.”

This time he didn’t argue. When he tried to stand up, he stumbled, grunting in pain before he could stop it. He swore, shaking off her hand.

“Come on,” Angel said, moving close. “Throw your arm around my neck and I’ll help you.”

He did as he was told, limping heavily as they made their way to the back door. She got him settled in the kitchen and went to the bathroom for towels. When she returned, he’d taken off his boot and was staring at the swelling ankle with an expression of annoyance. “Hell,” he said.

“Broken?” she asked.

“I don’t think so. Sprained good, though.”

“You’re lucky it wasn’t your neck, Isaiah.” She rubbed a towel over her face. “What in the world possessed you to stay up there in the rain?”

“Hurry.” Letting the ankle gently back down, he swore again. “Just cost myself a week, probably.”

A trickle of blood showed at his crown, and Angel
tsked
. “You banged your head, too,” she said, crossing the room to blot the cut with her towel. “You sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine, Angel,” he said harshly. “Stop hovering.”

Stung, she pulled back. “I’m going to change my clothes. You can go ahead and eat if you want.”

“I ain’t hungry.”

“Suit yourself.” Storming toward her room, she swallowed humiliation bitterly, telling herself that she was an idiot. Thinking of all the food, the set table, she sank down on her bed and pressed the soaked dress to her burning face. She was a fool.

By the time Angel came back
to the kitchen, his ankle was swelling mightily, and he would never have admitted it, but it hurt. His head ached, too. Nasty fall.

Stupid.

She hadn’t changed yet. Her hair hung in strings around her neck, making her look like a wet pup, and her dress was stuck to body. The lace of her slip showed through the fabric. She tossed a shirt at him.

“Put this on,” she said. “Least you won’t catch cold.”

She was gone before he could thank her.

The kitchen was filled with the smell of chicken and beans and cake, the table set for two. Isaiah stared at it bleakly, the struggle within him raging once again. He’d done well all week avoiding her, keeping himself aloof, not letting one single stray thought to cross his mind.

But here in her kitchen the war was on again, and himself so hobbled he could barely walk—or, rain be damned, he’d be gone.

He needed to go, but even as he thought it, Angel came back wearing a clean dress, her hair combed away from her face. It was already drying, curling up a little at the edges.

She was not by a long stretch the prettiest woman he had ever seen. Lots of women like her in Ireland and Scotland—thin white skin and skinny arms. Ordinary, really. Oh, she had pretty eyes and a good mouth, but even those things didn’t elevate her into anything close to a beauty. She was, if you looked at her, almost plain.

And yet, as she ignored him, opening the oven, taking out the platter of chicken, the bowl of gravy, he wanted her all the same, in a possessive way that had nothing to do with reality on any plane. As she slammed bowls down on the table, his stomach growled.

“Hope you don’t mind,” she said in a brittle voice, “if I go ahead and eat. I’m starving.”

He shook his head. A stab of pain forced one eye closed.

“Good grief, Isaiah,” she said, peering at him. “Don’t you even feel that? You’ve got blood running down your face.”

She pushed away from the table again and wet a towel with cold water at the sink, and with a look that dared him to stop her, she pressed the compress to his head. He winced.

“I’m sorry. It’s deep. You probably need a stitch.”

“I’ll be all right.”

“Yeah, you think you will.” Her voice was brisk. “You always think you will. How come men always think they’re made of iron?” She repositioned the compress, looked at him closely. “How do you really feel?”

He shifted, and his knee brushed the hem of her dress. He looked at the pattern, thin stripes in blue and pink and purple meeting in a cross hatch design every few inches.

How did he feel?

He felt that she was too close. The scent of her, plain unadorned Angel-skin, filled his head. The long stretch of her shin, bare and pale, filled his downcast eyes. The crook of her elbow hung near his jaw, and the faintest fan of her breath touched the bridge of his nose.

“Isaiah? Let me see your eyes. You can tell a concussion from the pupils.”

It took a hundred years for his eyes to travel from her shin to her face, a long, unfocused journey over the terrain of her body. He let his eyes slide over her belly beneath the cinch of the elastic waist of her dress, over the small, free weight of her breasts, over her throat and plump lips to her eyes, peering at him in concern.

He knew she was too close. As he looked into the water-green irises with their tiny flecks of gray and blue and yellow, he felt the shift in events that tilted them, Angel and Isaiah, in a new direction.

Helpless, transfixed, he found himself lifting a hand to her waist. The cloth of her dress wrinkled under his fingers and he felt the fragile underpinning of hip bone. He moved his thumb over it.

In return, Angel settled a hand on his neck, her fingers curving around the column. He could feel every molecule of her palm. Her thumb traced the shape of his chin.

She whispered his name and the tilt of events pushed them closer still. He hung in the moment, hearing the heavy, rhythmic pounding of the rain on the roof echoing in his chest, and he thought of a thousand things as his hand moved on her waist. He thought of their forays into the trees and of the letters she’d written to him through the war, letters that had leant courage and comfort and hope.

Wordlessly, she moved a step closer and raised her hand to his face. Lightly, lightly she touched her fingers to his mouth. Isaiah fell forward with a soft groan to press his head against her, his forehead close to her diaphragm, his nose against her stomach, his arms tight around her body. The smell of her filled his mouth, his heart, the world, and he breathed it in as if it would save him. She made a soft noise and bent into him, gathering his head closer, her cheek against his hair.

For a long, long moment, they rested together like that. He no longer felt the ache in his head or ankle. It didn’t matter that the world outside this room would curse him, that bloody Texas had hanged men for less.

“You know we can’t do this,” he said, but he felt himself exploring her back.