Winter Hearts (6 page)

“Don’t be a fool,” he growled.

Hell! Here I am doing right back to Sam the thing I hated when men did it to me.

But how could he trust him? He’d trusted Holland, and look where that’d got him. Best play it safe. He pushed back the quilt, feeling the shock of the cold air settling around him. “Stay warm while I get the stove started,” he said gruffly.

Sam pulled the quilt back up over Luke’s side of the bed. “Sure thing, Luke.”

“And don’t use that sassy tone with me.”

In minutes Luke had the stove blazing from the fragile embers left from last night, but it would take at least fifteen minutes to get the edge off the chilled house. Should he get back into bed until it was warm or get dressed? He hurried back to bed and pulled the quilt up to his chin. Lying on his back, he kept a good couple of inches between himself and Sam.

“I should do a wash today,” Sam said. “Can you hang a washing line in the house?”

“I’ve got some rope in the stable. I suppose I could rig something. What needs washing so badly?”

“Our flannel underwear, for one thing. And the sheets. They’ve got man juice on them.”

Luke froze. He was beginning to understand why the men in the mines had kept their yaps shut. It was just plain embarrassing to refer in daylight to what you had done in the dark. “Wash if you want to.” His gruff tone betrayed his discomfort.

“Have you got clean clothes?”

“Of course I have. You think I’m a pig?”

“Just asking, Luke.”

“Are you going to make some food, or are we going to starve?”

Leaning up on one elbow, Sam looked down at him. “Are you hungry?” Sam bent his head as if he intended to kiss him on the lips.

Roughly Luke pushed him away. “Stop fooling around and make yourself useful. I’m going to feed the animals.” He got out of bed, climbing over Sam. What the hell was wrong with that boy? Luke had wanted sex with him from the moment Sam had crawled into his bed the first night. But kissing? What the hell was that about? Men didn’t kiss each other.

Flustered, he got dressed, took two steps, and tripped over the bedroll, catching his head on the corner of the table and landing on his knees. “Shit! Get that goddamned thing out of here.”

Sam leaped out of bed. Even with the pain in Luke’s head, he couldn’t help but notice the dried, crusty stain on the crotch of Sam’s flannels. A raging red flag proclaiming what they’d done in the darkness.

With a solicitous look, Sam stepped across the bedroll and knelt in front of him, reaching for Luke. “Your head’s bleeding.”

Luke swiped at the sore spot, wiping away a drip of blood. “It’s nothing. Leave me alone.”

Sam stood up quickly as if he thought Luke was going to swat him. Luke got to his feet, still rubbing at the small cut.

“Let me put a cold cloth on that for you,” Sam said.

“The cold wind will take care of it.” He was at the door before Sam could touch him. He could hardly wait to get out of there.

“Do you have a tub for the laundry and some burlap going spare?” Sam asked.

Relieved they were talking about something ordinary, Luke put his hat on. “There’re a couple of empty sacks in the stable. What do you want them for?”

“To make a bolster for that door. And I’ll need straw to fill it.” He indicated the bottom of the door, where a sugaring of snow could be seen. “We need it to keep out the draft. I near froze on the floor last night once the stove went out.”

“Make it if you want. But you’d better sleep in the bed from now on. There’s no room for the bedroll anyway. Look what it did to me.” Luke grabbed his coat, leaving the house before he could fasten it against the storm.

The animals greeted him as they always did when he entered the stable. Pretty Girl turned toward him, whinnying. Pip looked at him, and the cow mooed. “At least you’re acting normal!” He lifted the hay bales with a pitchfork before throwing them into the stalls one at a time. The animals began to eat at once while he cleaned up the manure and broke the ice on their water trough so they could drink.

Luke was so confused. Last night he had wanted and welcomed Sam’s touch, but now he wanted to run away from it. His dream had always been to live with a man, to have a simple, happy life. Even so, you didn’t talk about sex or do sappy stuff. Even his parents had never touched or kissed in public. He had no idea if they did it in private, but he knew they loved each other. That was what he wanted: a silent, strong acknowledgment of love between him and another man. And loyalty. Loyalty was very important to him.

Sam was too open about everything. It scared him.

When the stable chores were done, he lingered with the animals, talking nonsense to them and rubbing them behind the ears—anything to delay going back in to face Sam.

Sam wanted a washing tub, burlap sack, and straw. Oh, and rope for a laundry line. Luke stuffed the sack full of straw, lifted a coil of rope off the wall where it hung, and took the tub by its handles.

Outside he grabbed the clothesline and followed it back to the house. He burst in with a flurry of wind and snow. The house smelled wonderful. He never tired of salt pork and pancakes. Sam served the meal, and they sat down to eat. Luke bowed his head and waited while Sam recited his usual grace, and then tucked in without looking at him, dreading what the boy would say next. Fortunately Sam held his peace, eating with his usual good manners, silently reminding Luke to improve now that he had company.

Sated from the good breakfast, Luke sat back in his chair to drink his coffee while Sam finished his breakfast before refilling Luke’s tin cup. He should probably say thanks, but he was still so uncomfortable from that attempted kiss that he was avoiding eye contact. “Good breakfast.” He caught Sam’s smile out of the corner of his eye.

That boy loves to be praised.

With lightning speed Sam cleared the breakfast dishes, swept the floor, and made the bed while Luke tended the stove and drank the rest of the coffee.

When the house was spick-and-span, Sam stood with his hands on his hips and a look of satisfaction on his face. He was still wearing only his underwear with the stain that was like a beacon on a dark night.

“Get your clothes off.”

Shocked, Luke looked at him. “What the hell!”

“I’m going to wash them.” He began to strip where he stood, peeling off his flannels until he was naked.

Feeling foolish, Luke stripped off his clothes and fetched his clean shirt and trousers from the nails by the bed. Both men put clean clothes on, though Sam did not put on a shirt over the top of his under flannels.

“I watched the ladies in the hotels I stayed in on the way so I’d know how to do a wash. They thought I was funny. They called me the handsome bachelor and said I’d soon find a wife to do my laundry.” He grinned.

“Is that right?” Luke said grimly. “Why did you need to watch the hotel maids? Surely you watched your mother doing the weekly wash when you were little.”

“That’s true. Guess I forgot.”

Sam filled the big tub at the pump and then rested it atop the stove to boil. When steam filled the little house, frosting the window, he put the shirts, underwear, and trousers into the tub and, with a wooden spoon, beat them down into the bubbling water and stirred them. “After they’ve boiled, I’ll wash them.”

Sitting at the table watching him, Luke pointed at the bar of laundry soap on the shelf above the sink. He tipped his chair back onto its rear legs and put his booted feet on the table. Life had been easier before Sam had touched him. Then he had only fantasized about sex. Now that he’d had it, he wanted it even more, and thinking about it made him hard.

While the laundry boiled, Sam used a knife to slit open the burlap sack. Carefully he pulled a long string of burlap free. From his bag he took a set of needles, selected the biggest, and threaded the burlap string through the eye. Luke watched him, the image taking him back to his mother and grandmother when he was a boy. They’d sit in the small parlor behind the butcher shop, sewing clothes for the family. His mother would hold the needle far away and squint to thread it.

Sam looked up, meeting his gaze. Their eyes locked for half a minute. Luke looked away first. For a long time they sat quietly together, not speaking while Sam sewed the bolster and stuffed it with straw. At last the bolster was done and put in place.

The difference in the draft under the door was noticeable immediately. It would save on coal. With the laundry boiled, Sam let it cool and then grated soap into it. He beat the clothes with the wooden spoon again and then rinsed them at the sink, adding starch to the final rinse. “I need a proper laundry paddle. Guess I could buy one from Fuller’s when the storm is over. Are you going to rig my laundry line?”

Luke got up to take care of it, enjoying doing a little domestic chore for Sam despite his insecurity about the night before.

With the laundry hanging to dry, it was the middle of the afternoon, and they hadn’t eaten any dinner. “I’ll make an early supper, and it can serve as dinner too,” Sam said. Luke didn’t respond, so Sam got on with cooking.

They ate the fried potatoes and fried salt pork in silence. Luke loved fried potatoes, especially with fried eggs. “I’ll buy some chickens in the spring, and then we can have eggs.”

“We?” Sam asked.

“I meant me,” he corrected himself.

When he put the last bite into his mouth, Sam leaned across and scraped the rest of his meal off his plate onto Luke’s. “I’m not hungry,” he said.

“Why not?” Luke forked up another potato.

A slight frown marred the young man’s usually happy face. “Who the hell would be with you giving them the silent treatment? What are you so mad about?”

Good question
. “I’m not mad.” He was still uncomfortable about the morning and he wanted Sam again, but the day had dragged on and there was another hour or so till dark and longer still until bedtime. That was making him mad, but he couldn’t say all that, not out loud.

Sam stood. “I can do the outdoor chores this evening. I want to see Pip anyway.”

Before Luke could protest, Sam was buttoning his coat. He jammed his hat onto his head and left the house. “I was better off before you came!” Luke shouted after him. It was completely untrue, and he had no idea why he said it.

The drying clothes made the air moist. The window was still steamed over. Luke hung the sack on the nails to cover it and then washed the dishes and wiped the table. He tended the stove and put the two chairs beside it. By the time Sam returned, the place was shipshape, warm, and homey. Sam looked at the table, surprise sending his eyebrows up.

“I can wash a few dishes and sweep the floor. You think I lived like a tinker before you got here?”

Sam hung up his coat and hat, but instead of sitting opposite Luke by the stove, he stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at him. “Tell me what I did to make you so mad.”

Luke stared at his boots. “Nothing. I’m just sick of winter. I want to get back to the land and plant my crops.”

“That’s what everyone wants. Are you mad about what I did last night? Because you weren’t protesting at the time.”

“Just be quiet and sit down.”

Sam retrieved something from his coat pocket before joining Luke at the stove. It was a book that he opened at a particular page and read out loud, “I hold it true whate’er befall; / I feel it when I sorrow most; / ’Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all.”

Memories of Holland flooded Luke’s head.
Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It’s from a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson. He wrote it about a dear friend of his who died young. A man he loved. Shall I read the whole thing?”

Luke knew nothing about poetry, but those words rang true. He crossed his arms over his chest while stretching his feet toward the stove. “If you want.”

The poem was very long, and there were times when he could not understand the meaning, but it didn’t matter. Sam’s strong yet gentle voice filled his head. Several times Luke looked up, watching Sam’s face as he read. The young man was intent on his reading, his expression serious and yet softening now and again at certain lines.

“What was that? Read that line again.”

“Which one? I’ll read the whole stanza,” Sam said. “Such clouds of nameless trouble cross / All night below the darkened eyes; / With morning wakes the will and cries / Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.”

Thou shalt not be the fool of loss.

“Does that mean something to you?” Sam looked up, smiling.

“Can it mean something different to me than it means to the man who wrote it? I mean…it’s his poem.”

Sam held his gaze. “That’s the thing with poetry. It can mean something different to everyone who hears it, and who’s to say it’s not right? What does it mean to you?”

I’ve been a fool to loss. I haven’t seen or heard from Holland in four years, and still I keep his picture and look at it just to get mad at him all over again.

“Nothing. I was just asking.”

Sam bent his head and finished the poem. He read another shorter one after that and then put the book on the table. “I’ll iron the clothes tomorrow.”

“I don’t have an iron,” Luke said.

“I’ve got one in the wagon.”

It was dark out, but Luke was uncomfortable to say it was bedtime in case Sam thought he was expecting the same as they’d done last night. Finally he got up. “I’m going to bed.” He cleaned his teeth and washed his face over the sink and was in bed in five minutes. Closing his eyes, he tried to force himself to sleep before Sam came to bed, but it was no use. He heard the water run as Sam washed and brushed his teeth. The room went dark when Sam put out the oil lamp and closed the stove door. For a minute or two there was no sound, and then he felt Sam climb into bed beside him in the pitch dark.

It felt like an hour, but it couldn’t have been more than a few minutes until Sam rolled onto his side and scooted in closer, pressing his belly into Luke’s back. Luke wore his flannels as he did every night, so it wasn’t until Sam put his arm around Luke’s waist and he felt it against his hand that he realized Sam was naked.