Weeping Angel (15 page)

Frank gave her a lazy smile that made her pulse race with an irregular beat. “She was under the weather.”

“You're not telling me the truth.”

“Nope.”

Ducking the overhanging branch of a gnarled oak, Amelia waited for him to confess. When he didn't, she prodded him. “Oh, for heaven's sake, I told you I could make fried chicken, the least you can do is tell me why you gave Narcissa cattails.”

“Making fried chicken is no secret.” He grinned. “But the reason I gave Mrs. Dodge cattails is.”

“Then suit yourself and don't tell me.” This time she caught him off guard and wrenched free of his grip. She picked up her pace, practically setting off in a blind run. Let him keep his secret why he gave a married woman marsh stems. No man had ever given her a present, and perhaps the lack thereof was showing like a shiny penny on her face.

“Slow down, dammit.” Frank chased her up her walkway and onto her porch.

Amelia opened her purse and fumbled for her door key, but not until Frank put his hand over hers. She didn't want to meet his gaze.

Frank took her chin in his fingers and lifted her head to face him. She stared into the depths of his blue eyes and felt an inexplicable jolt of her heart. “I gave Mrs. Dodge the cattails because her husband signs the permits that keep me in business.”

Her chivalrous illusions of him shattered. He gave the gift because he wanted something. Or rather, wanted to keep things running smoothly. “Now I wish you hadn't told me,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because giving a gift for self purposes isn't heroic.”

“Sweetheart, I'm not the hero type.” He gazed at her, his expression unreadable. She wasn't sure what he was thinking. A man like Frank Brody could mask his emotions well, and she wasn't experienced enough to read between the lines.

“W-What?” she stammered. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“I was just thinking.”

“Th-Thinking what?” She couldn't breathe. He stood so close. Close enough for her to smell the sun-baked straw on his hat, the shaving soap clinging to his skin.

“About your fried chicken.” Closer. . . . Then he gave her a kiss on the lips. Not really on the lips, but rather the corner of her mouth . . . the place where she had a very slight dimple when she smiled. There was nothing romantic or passionate about the kiss; it was more brotherly than anything else. But intimate just the same.

Amelia wasn't prepared for the gesture, and she didn't know what to do. She stood there like a statue, eyes wide and heart thumping. He pulled away, letting go of her hand. “You better get inside.”

She couldn't find her voice as he turned to leave. Her eyes followed him through her picket gate and beyond until she couldn't see him anymore. How could she have allowed him to take such a liberty? She raised her gloved hand to her cheek . . . to the spot his lips had kissed.

As the sky deepened to dusk, and the evening call of crickets began their symphony of chirps, she couldn't help wondering . . .

Would he kiss her dead center on the mouth if she made him fried chicken?

A
s the laundry shop bell tinkled above Frank's head, the smells of Roseine washing powder and borax pressed upon him. Though the two windows on the northern walls were open, the air in the receiving area was pungent and suffocating.

He shut the door and strode into the room. Balls of fuzz were prevalent on the floorboards and they scattered like pale chicks when he walked. His gaze landed on the name-labeled cubbies that had been built in back of the front counter. He looked for his and found a neatly wrapped bundle inside, then he waited for Emmaline to appear from behind the chenille drape. He leaned his hip against the hinged top of the counter, glanced at his pants leg, then plucked the lint off the dark material.

Fighting the need to breathe fresh air, he slid some of the stamped denim laundry bags bulging with clothes out of his way so he could rest his arms on his elbows. He drummed his fingertips on the surface, glancing at the bolt of manila paper and cotton twine.
He hadn't seen Emmaline since Sunday after church. Usually, he came around the laundry twice a week—once to drop off, once to pick up, sometimes a third time if he happened to run into her on the street and she invited him.

“Emmaline,” he called out over the hiss of a steam generator when she hadn't appeared after a few minutes. “Hey, Em.”

Nothing.

Straightening, Frank looked over his shoulder. Late in the day, the boardwalk wasn't overly used. Most of the businesses had two hours left until closing. Shrugging, Frank lifted the counter piece up and slipped through. He paused at the curtain, caught the edge in his hand, and glanced around the large area. Looking like a hydrant, the nine-hundred-pound generator spit vapors through cracks in the seams; white mist rose in clouds. There was a hand cylinder washing machine with a hose attached to a spigot running through the open back door. He still couldn't see Emmaline, so he entered the workings of the laundry to look for her.

He went around numerous clothes bars and a shelf lined up with Kingsford silver gloss, celluloid starch packages, a half-pound case of Roseine washing powder, Chinese laundry wax, and bottles of blueing, lye, and borax.

“Emmaline.” His voice carried over the
shist-shist
of the steam.

He rounded a laundry stove with two boiler holes and space on the sides for nine irons, all of which were occupied with sadirons in varying sizes. A hand fluter with ridges rested in its cradle on the edge of one of the burners.

Figuring she was outside hanging clothes, he went in that direction. There was a double-wide door to his right, just behind the Jewel Collar and Cuff Ironer and Economic Starcher. He'd asked her once what all the
gadgets were, and she'd proudly told him the names. He'd been interested in the flip-down lid on the sink, and she'd showed him that many times over since.

Frank reached the doorway and put his hand on the frame.

Emmaline stood next to a basket crammed with sheets, her cheeks a high pink from the heat. She'd plaited her hair in a loose braid, and black tendrils framed her face. Her apron pocket swelled with clothespins, and she fit one over the fold of unbleached sheeting and into the taut clothesline. He hesitated, measuring her for a moment. She appeared much younger than the twenty-five years she'd told him was her age. He felt a queer flinch bunch his muscles, and a flicker of scruples swept through him.

As she withdrew another pin, she sang, “Ere my verses I conclude, I'd like it known and understood, though free as air, I'm never rude—I'm not too bad and not too good! Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay! Ta-ra-ra-boom—”

“Emmaline.”

“—de . . . ay. . . .” Hearing Frank, she turned. An unsure smile curved her lips. “Hello, Frank.”

“I waited for you to come to the counter, but you didn't hear the bell.”

“I can't hear it when I'm outside.” She fit the pin into the end of the sheet, then came toward him. An awkward tension stretched between them. “I have your laundry finished.”

She made a move to go inside, but he touched her arm and prevented her from passing by. “I saw.” She glanced at his hand, then at his face. “Are you still mad at me?” he asked, holding her captive with his gaze.

She shrugged softly. “I suppose not.”

“Good.” But oddly, he didn't feel any sense of
relief. He leaned in to kiss her, but instead of seeing her hazel eyes and ebony hair, he pictured tones of brown. Eyes the color of walnut and hair like shiny sienna. Rather than capture Emmaline's lips with his, he gently caught her jaw in his fingers, turned her head, and kissed her cheek. When he backed away, disappointment clearly showed in her gaze—as well as puzzlement. He let her go, but she didn't readily move away. Perhaps she thought he was waiting for her to invite him to spill some suds.

He felt a pang of guilt—for what, he didn't care to analyze. He didn't want to look at her as if he were weighing the question of doing it with her on the drainer lid. Dammit to hell, he wasn't in the mood for no good reason he could find to give her.

Brushing his knuckles under her chin, he gave her what he hoped was an easy grin. “I've got to be opening up the Moon Rock too soon to enjoy kissing you the way I like.” He rubbed his thumb on her soft skin. “Next time, sweetheart.”

Emmaline blushed. “Let me get your shirts for you.”

Frank followed her around the equipment and through the curtain where he ducked underneath the counter to stand like an ordinary customer in front of her. She went for the cubby in which she'd chalked his name and withdrew his crinkling brown paper-wrapped parcel.

Shoving his hand in his hip pocket, Frank took out his leather flap book.

“That's all right, Frank.” Emmaline's voice stopped him. “There's no charge.”

“Why not?”

“Because I got mad at you when you invited Miss Marshall to give her lessons in your saloon.” Emmaline fidgeted with the leaves of her sales book. “I shouldn't have. I . . . I guess I was jealous until I
realized she's not the type of woman to turn a man's head.”

Frank's misgivings were increasing. “I haven't noticed anything wrong with Miss Marshall.”

“There's nothing wrong with her. It's just that, well, you know, the scandal and all with the book and Bible salesman left her rather . . . cold. She's not a very warm person, especially toward men.”

“I think I should pay you for the shirts,” Frank commented, not wanting to hear anything further on Amelia Marshall's character.

Emmaline traced the lettering on the cover of her book with a slender finger. “Well, there is something you could do in lieu of payment.”

“I told you, sweetheart, I don't have time today.”

“Not that.” She gave him a beckoning smile. “The Fourth of July picnic is coming up in a couple weeks, and you could take me.”

A tightness strained Frank's shoulders. “I don't go to town functions, Em.”

“But it's not sponsored by the church, or anything,” she rushed. “It's going to be fun. There'll be a box lunch raffle, booths, and games.”

“I'm sorry. I don't like crowds.”

Crestfallen, her chin lowered. “I'm sorry, too.”

He grappled for an alternative to placate her. “Why don't you ask one of the boys who work at Reed's sawmill to take you?”

Her head lifted and her eyes shot him a glare. “No. A lady doesn't do that sort of thing. It was hard enough for me to ask you.”

Frank selected a dollar from his wallet and set it on the counter. “I think you're a beautiful woman, Em, but I thought you understood I'm not a man for social functions.”

“Yes . . . you told me. I just thought . . . oh, never mind.”

He picked up his package, feeling like a pile of dog crap. “I'm sorry,” he said again, then exited the laundry.

The boardwalk planks rang hard under his heels. He should have left Emmaline Shelby alone because she was beginning to want more from him than a casual affair. Well, he wasn't a courtship kind of man. He'd sooner buy his own casket than enter a church, stand in front of a reverend, and get into a matrimonial neck yoke.

As Frank walked to the Moon Rock, he kept seeing Emmaline's sad eyes. He'd thought he'd made himself clear before they'd started up. Emmaline might have been willing, but he shouldn't have allowed anything to happen between them. She lived in a respectable boardinghouse on Holy Road, went to the Christ Redeemer, and had parents living somewhere in Kansas—or so she'd said. She never told him why she'd left home, only that she had, and that she'd made some mistakes.

Hell, he really should have gone down to Boise once a month where the lights were red and the beds soft. Instead, he'd gotten tangled up with a girl who'd strayed off the main trail, but was an honorable woman just the same. He liked Emmaline and couldn't find a single fault in her. She deserved better than what she was getting from him.

As Frank neared his saloon, he heard the sour notes of his upright wailing for mercy from the lessons. Amelia had begun at one o'clock, and apparently the torturous noise hadn't let up since, this now being 3:15. Earlier in the day, he'd awoken to the god-awful sounds of
do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do—do-ti-la-so-fa-mi-re-do.
Over and over and over and over, and not necessarily in the right order. He'd been so agitated by the time he'd swung his legs out of the bed, he'd gotten dressed in the first things he could find, and hightailed
it out of his saloon. He'd eaten a dissatisfying meal at One-Eye Otis's Chuckwagon, then headed over to the laundry to see Em.

He'd been hoping the Moon Rock would be cleared out by the time he got back, but the ineptitude of the loud scales told him otherwise. Seeing twin boys with steel-framed eyeglasses sitting on the split log bench in front of the saloon didn't lighten Frank's dark mood. The bibs of their overalls were unfastened on one side and they were licking chunks of melting ice; dribbles of water trailed down their elbows and puddled on the boardwalk.