Years (49 page)

She stumbled once and he mercilessly yanked her to her feet. The door was totally blocked by a wall of white. After attempting to open it and failing, Theodore plowed his way back down the steps toward the wagon. In a moment he returned with a shovel.

“I can do it!” she shouted as he came back to her. “Give it to me!”

She reached for the shovel handle. One of her mittens closed around it beside his worn leather glove. She pulled. He tugged. They glared at each other stubbornly. The wind flickered his hat brim and sent her scarf tails whipping like a flag. The tip of her nose was wet. The tops of his ears were red.

Wordlessly he wrenched the shovel from her grasp, then ground through his teeth, “Just get out of my way.” He shouldered her rudely aside and rammed the shovel in the snowdrift with uncontrolled vehemence.

“Theodore, I said I can do it!”

It took no more than twelve flying shovelfuls to free the door. He jerked it open, grabbed her elbow, and thrust her inside.

“I will shovel the goddamn snow!” he bellowed, then slammed the door in her face.

She stared at it while tears scalded her eyes, then gave it a vicious kick. Angrily she swung inside to get the coal hod. But
when she marched out with it he yanked it from her hand, jammed his shovel in a drift, did an about face, and without a word trudged around the corner of the building through knee-deep snow. She was standing rigidly with her back to the door when he clumped inside and cracked the pail down beside her with a force that shook the windows. Behind her his boots thudded like hammer blows, then both doors slammed.

She built the fire with enough banging and clanging to shake the teeth loose in his head — she hoped! When it was lit she tightened the ends of her scarf so hard it nearly choked her. She had just opened the cloakroom door and was heading for the water pail when he barged in from outside, with the same intent. Sour-faced, she watched him grab it and head outside. She slammed her door before he could slam his.

He was back in minutes. With her back to the door, arms crossed tightly, she stood by the stove and listened to him transfer the water to the crock in the corner. Next came the clap of the wooden cover, then he returned the pail to the cloakroom.

The inner door slammed.

Was he in or out?

She glared at the stovepipe for two full minutes, wondering. Nothing but silence. Curiosity finally got the best of her and she peeked over one shoulder. There he stood, hands on hips, glaring at her from under the brim of his Stetson.

She snapped around to the stove again.

“Well, are you going to tell me about him or not?” came his belligerent voice.

“Tell you about whom?” she retorted stubbornly.

“Whom?” He laughed derisively and his boots clunked slowly across the floor. He stopped no more than a foot behind her. “Adrian what’s-his-name, that’s who!”

“Mitchell. His name is Adrian Mitchell.”

“I really don’t give a damn what his name is. Are you going to tell me or not?”

“I told you, he works at my father’s store,” she spit.

“I’ll bet,” he returned sardonically.

She spun around. “Well, he does!”

His eyes were shadowed by the brim of his hat, but even so she could make out the anger gleaming in their depths. His jacket collar was turned up around his ears, his boots planted
wide. “Another one for your collection?” he accused.

“And what do you care?” she retorted, making fists inside her mittens.

“Is he?” Theodore spit back, making fists inside his gloves.

“It’s none of your business. How dare you question me about my personal life. All you are is my landlord!”

“What did you do, go out riding in
automobiles
with him?” Theodore sneered.

“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. And I had fun, too. And he took me to a party, and ice-skating, and we danced and drank champagne punch, and he came to my house for supper. And you know what else he did, Theodore?” She thrust her nose closer, taunting him with bright, snapping eyes. “He kissed me. Is that what you want to know? Is it?”

She thrust even closer and squared her jaw while Theodore’s face burned pepper-red between cold, mottled white spots.

“You’re pushin’ your luck, missy,” he threatened in a low, gravelly voice.

She backed off and gave a derisive sniff. “Oh, don’t make me laugh, Theodore. It would take a railroad locomotive to push you. You’re scared of your own shadow.” He took one threatening step forward, but she held her ground, blue eyes gone black with challenge. “Aren’t you?”

They faced off, each looking for a weakness in the other, finding none. Finally Theodore demanded, “How old is he?”

“Twenty, twenty-one maybe. Now run, Theodore, run like you always do!”

He glared at her, the muscles in his neck so tense a pain shot up the back of his head. Then Theodore, who rarely cursed, growled his second curse of the day.

“Damn you.” He jerked her forward by both elbows, dropping his mouth over hers in a savage kiss. Immediately her mouth opened, and she struggled as if to call out, but he ruthlessly held her, feeling her arms tensed to fight. Beneath his mouth she made a muffled sound as if trying to speak, but he refused to free her lips and let her rail at him again. His tongue thrust between her teeth and hers met it, full force. Only then did he realize she was struggling not to get away from him but to get
to
him. He eased his grasp on her elbows and immediately she flung her arms around his neck. Up on tiptoe she went, moving close, clinging. His arms circled her back, pulling her
flush against him, the bulk of their woolen clothing forming a barrier.

He lifted his head abruptly, forcing her away from him, breathing hard. Her eyes were like chips of coal to which a match had been touched. They burned bright and intensely into his face.

“Teddy, Teddy, why do you fight it?” Her breath came in quick, driving beats.

He closed his eyes to get control, pressing her away by the arms. “Because I’m old enough to be your father. Don’t you understand that?”

“I understand that you only use it as an excuse.”

“Stop it!” he shot back, opening his eyes to reveal a tortured expression. “And think about what you’re saying, what we’re doing! You’re eighteen years—”

“Closer to nineteen.”

“All right, so you’ll be nineteen next month. And I’ll be thirty-five two months after that. What difference does it make? There’ll still be sixteen years between us.”

“I don’t care,” she insisted.

“Your pa would care.” Immediately he saw that he’d touched a vulnerable spot. “Your pa, who probably has a young fellow named Adrian all picked out for you and already working in his store, isn’t that right?”

“Adrian wrote to me. I didn’t write to him.”

“But you kissed him and did all those things with him and I’m jealous and I got no right to be, don’t you see? You should be with young people like him, not with old bucks like me.”

“You’re not an old buck, you’re way more fun to be around than he is, and when he kisses me nothing happens like when you—”

“Shh!” He covered her mouth with one gloved finger, the anger falling away as fast as it had come.

For a long moment their eyes locked, then she freed her lips from his hand and whispered, “But it’s true.”

“You live in my house. Don’t you understand what people would say, what they might think?”

“That you love me?” she questioned softly. “Would that be so terrible?”

“Linnea, don’t,” he uttered, still pressing her away.

“Oh, Teddy, I... I love you so much I do crazy things,”
she admitted plaintively. “I kiss blackboards and windows and pillows because you won’t kiss me.”

Though he tried to steel himself against her, her ingenuousness made his mouth flicker in a sad smile. Trouble was, what he liked most about her were the very things that made her too young for him. No other girl he’d ever known had been so natural and unspoiled. He let his eyes drift to her hairline, the red plaid scarf tied severely around her face. Her sincere eyes. Her sweet mouth.

Much more softly she said, “I do love you, Teddy.”

Lord, lord, girl, don’t do this to me.

But when she raised her eyes to his once more, he gave up and drew her into his arms, gently this time. He closed his eyes and nestled her beneath his chin with one gloved hand holding the back of her head. “Don’t,” he requested in a dry, scratchy voice. She felt him swallow against the top of her head. “Don’t try to grow up too fast and waste these precious years on me. Be young and foolish. Kiss blackboards and windows and talk to people who aren’t there.”

Chagrined, she burrowed deeper beneath his chin. “You guessed, didn’t you?”

“That you talk to people who aren’t there? Yes, after the day I surprised you at the blackboard here. And one other time I heard you upstairs, talking to your friend Lawrence. Are you ready to tell me who he is yet?”

He leaned back, the better to see her. She hung her head sheepishly. One leather-covered finger tipped her chin up until she couldn’t avoid meeting his eyes. A blush appeared on the crests of her cheeks and she blinked wide. “He’s nobody,” she admitted, “I made him up.”

Theodore scowled. “Made him up?”

“He’s just a figment of my imagination. Somebody to take the place of the friend I didn’t have when I first came out here. Actually, I invented him when I was about thirteen or so, when I first noticed the difference between boys and girls. He and I... well, I could just talk to him, that’s all. Like I never could to a real boy.” She dropped her chin and studied a pocket flap on Theodore’s jacket.

He studied her nose, her eyebrows, the sweep of lashes dropped docilely over her pretty blue eyes. Her lips were delicate and slightly puffed, and he wanted worse than anything
to kiss them and teach them the hundreds of ways of kissing back.

“What am I going to do with you, little one?” he questioned softly.

She looked up and told him, “Marry me.”

“I can’t. No matter how I’d like to, I can’t. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

Why should it be unfair of him to do something that would make her the happiest woman in the world?

“Fair? To me?”

“Linnea, think. Think about twenty years from now when you’d still be young... I’d be past middle age.”

“Oh, Teddy, you have an obsession with years. You’re forever counting them. But don’t you see it’s more important to count happiness? Why, even in twenty years we could have more happiness than some people have in fifty. Please... ”

Her eyes were so sincere and her mouth trembled as she stood a heartbeat away. When her gaze dropped to his lips his pulsebeat thudded out a warning, but he found it impossible to move as she slowly lifted on tiptoe, raised her slightly parted lips to his, then held both sides of his face between her sleek mink mittens. “Please... ” she murmured, tipping her head and softly plucking at his mouth, then slipping her hands around his neck and pressing herself against him. “Please... ”

He steeled himself to resist, but her tongue glided over his lips, then shyly probed inside, over his teeth, and the sensitive skin of his inner lips. With a throaty sound he gathered her close, slanted his head and joined her fully. Their tongues met in a silken encounter and their bodies strained together. Their hearts seemed to collide, breast to breast, and arousal took them by storm.

He tasted faintly of morning coffee and smelled of winter air. The interior of his mouth was hot, moist, and more tempting than anything she had ever imagined. None of the kisses she’d experienced had ever moved her as this one did. She thought she would simply die if it couldn’t be hers forever.

But suddenly he pulled back and jerked her arms from around his neck. The scarf had fallen back and lay in soft folds about her collar. Her eyes were wide and pleading, her lips parted, exuding small, panting breaths. His voice shook and his breath was driven.

“I have to go.”

“But what about us?”

“The answer is still no.”

She swallowed the lump in her throat and said shakily, “Then I’ll have to go, too. I can’t stay in that house with you any longer. Not the way I feel.”

He’d known it would come down to this, but he hadn’t expected it to hurt quite this much.

“No. I promise I wouldn’t—”

She touched his lips to silence him. “I can’t make the same promise, Teddy... ” she whispered.

Everything in him seemed to hurt. Everything in him wanted. He wanted Linnea, but so much more — the rich, full life she could bring. He’d never known he could hurt so bad, want so bad.

“I’ll be back for you at five o’clock and we’ll talk about it then. You’re not to start out for home, is that understood?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“When you need more coal, send Kristian out for it. Promise?” When she didn’t respond he shook her a little, demanding softly, “Promise?”

“I promise.”

“Fix your hair. I think I’ve messed it in the back.” The words were gravelly as he stepped back, steadying her by her arms.

“I will,” she replied woodenly.

Then he dropped his hands and left without looking back.

19