Cinderfella (18 page)

Why did he have to look at her like that? Why did he have to be so handsome? Why did her heart lurch when he caught her eye that way? Magnetism, childish infatuation, a mysterious working of her heart. She had to ignore it all.

Elmo and Oswald were climbing the steps — empty handed of course — when Ash stopped them. He literally placed himself between them and the front door.

“My wife doesn't ride in the back of the wagon,” he said in a low voice.

My wife.

“There's only room for three on the seat,” Oswald argued. “She's the newcomer here. If she wants to ride along to town that's fine, but —”

Ash reached out calmly, grabbed the front of Oswald's shirt, and lifted the man so that only the tips of his toes touched the porch. “My wife doesn't ride in the back of the wagon,” he repeated.

“Okay, okay,” Oswald agreed quickly and shrilly. “Elmo can ride in the back next time.”

Ash dropped his stepbrother, and Elmo and Oswald quickly slipped into the house.

My wife,
he'd said. Twice. The sound of that calm, cool, assured voice sent shivers up her spine. She knew the fluttering in her heart was an inappropriate and silly response, but there was no denying it.
My wife.
It was more than those simple words and the way Ash said them. The way he was looking at her right now made her want to melt away.

He came to the wagon and helped her to the ground, hands on her waist, his body close to hers. “Are you all right?”

“I'm a little dizzy,” she admitted, and she slid an arm around his waist. Just for support until the ground stopped spinning.

Ash kept both arms around her, holding her close and steady. It really had been rather sweet of him to come to her defense, so she couldn't very well push him away. She lifted her face to look into his. Goodness, had his eyes always been such a captivating green? He'd taken to shaving almost every day, and he looked so much more handsome without all that hair on his face.

“I'm quite all right, now,” she whispered.

“Good.” He didn't move away, and neither did she.

A cold wind rushed over and between them, chilling her face and ruffling a strand of hair across Ash's cheek. Her heart caught in her throat, and she wanted, at that moment, to place her lips against his, to steal a bit of his warmth and comfort. Like a thief, she came up on her toes to bring her mouth closer to his.

He dipped his head to catch her lips, and the chill went away.

“How dare you!”

Verna came storming down the front steps as Ash and Charmaine fell slowly apart.

“How dare you,” she said again, “threaten my son! You ruffian! I will not allow you to speak in such a manner to either of my children!”

Ash seemed not to mind her outburst at all. In fact, he smiled. Goodness, he should smile more often. “My wife doesn't ride in the back of the wagon.”

Charmaine spun around to grab a parcel from the back of the wagon, and found herself staring into Nathan Sweet's face. He stood just inside the barn and leaned against the door that was propped open, and was wearing such a smug grin that she was sure he'd seen the kiss. Well, she thought as she stared him down, there was nothing wrong with a little kiss. She and Ash were married, after all.

Oh, dear.

 

She'd never noticed before what a truly gentle man Ash Coleman was. He smiled at Nathan's stories, which were becoming repetitive for her and so
must
be for Ash, and he never raised his voice to Verna, no matter how mean and spiteful she was. Any other man would have kicked those lazy stepbrothers out long ago, but not Ash.

And he'd been good to her, given the circumstances.

Something in her heart softened as she watched him. The firelight on his face, the cant of his wide shoulders. And he kissed so wonderfully. Was she a fool to ignore what they both obviously wanted? She was, after all, a fully grown woman and Ash was all man. Dangerous thoughts to be having.

“What about you, Charmaine?” Nathan asked, and she realized she'd missed most of this particular conversation.

“I'm sorry,” she said softly. “I must confess I was about to fall asleep in my chair. It was a busy day.”

“Your favorite play,” Nathan urged.

She started to tell him that the theater was frivolous entertainment, but she knew Nathan Sweet well enough to know that the theater was his life. It would hurt his feelings terribly. Besides, she did remember one pleasant outing, before she'd joined Howard in his crusades.

“The Count of Monte Cristo,”
she said, apologetic that it was not Shakespeare. “I saw it performed in Philadelphia a few years ago, when I was visiting Jeanette. It was quite a thrilling performance.” And truthfully, it had been.

“You haven't seen my
Macbeth
,” Nathan said with a challenge in his voice. “Now,
that's
thrilling.”

Oswald jumped in with his own opinion, and Charmaine returned her attention to Ash. He stared into the fire, unaware of her perusal, and that was just as well.

“Ash,” Verna said sharply. “I didn't have a chance to wash up the supper dishes. You will finish that chore for me, won't you?”

Without a word of protest Ash started to rise. He was much too tired at the end of the day to be taking on Verna's responsibilities!

Charmaine started to give Verna a piece of her mind, but of course that would accomplish nothing but to make things unpleasant for everyone. “I'll do it,” she said instead, waving Ash back to his seat.

She headed for the kitchen without so much as looking in Verna's direction.

She was unbuttoning the cuffs of her shirtwaist and preparing to roll the sleeves up and deal with the stack of dishes by the sink when Ash came into the kitchen.

“I don't mind,” he said, heading for the dirty dishes. “Most nights I welcome any opportunity to slip away from Verna's gossip and Elmo's whining.” He wore a half-smile as he rolled up his own cuffs.

She couldn't very well allow him to think that she was doing something nice for him. “That's precisely why I volunteered. And I adore Nathan, but he's beginning to repeat himself. I've heard the story about Lily Langtry three times.”

“I'll wash, you dry,” he said with a smile.

“I'll wash,
you
dry,” she countered. “I still don't know where everything goes, and I swear if there's so much as a cup out of place, Verna pitches a fit.”

“Does she give you a hard time when I'm not here?” Ash's smile faded.

“Not really,” she said quickly. “She's just her normal self, which isn't very pleasant. Goodness, Ash,” she said as he set a pan of water on the stove to warm. “You shouldn't let her talk to you the way she does.” Charmaine lowered her voice. “She's an ungrateful, tyrannical, and thoroughly unpleasant woman.”

“Yes, she is,” he agreed as he turned to face her.

“Why on earth did your father marry her? He was such a fine man, funny and always smiling and with a kind word for everyone, why would he marry a woman like that?”

Ash didn't answer right away. He shifted his weight from one foot to another and gave her question serious thought. “He was lonely. Mom had been gone nine years. . . . ”

“He had you.”

That got another small smile out of him. “Anyway, he met Verna and she evidently did everything right. She was sweet as honey when they met, timid and agreeable. He told me that much. He didn't meet the boys until
after
he'd brought her home.”

They washed and dried the dishes, taking their time, standing side by side and talking about Ash's father and the people they'd gone to school with who had moved on. Ash knew the whereabouts of several of those old friends who were now far from Salley Creek.

She told him a little about Boston, very carefully avoiding any mention of Howard and his seminars and manuals.

It was in the midst of a description of her trip to the seaside that he reached out and touched her neck, there beneath her ear. It was a soft brush of his fingers, but was enough to send her reeling backwards.

“Sorry,” he said, returning his attention to the dishes that were piling up. “You had a little smudge of dirt there. I thought I could just. . . . ”

“I do?” She raised a hand to her neck and covered the spot Ash had touched.

“I think I got it.” He turned his back on her to take a stack of plates to the cupboard.

“Oh.” She returned to the pan of dishes, and noted with a touch of disappointment that there wasn't much left to do. Talking to Ash over dirty dishes was much more pleasant than an evening with the family. “Sorry I jumped so. You just surprised me a little.”

“I should've warned you.”

She still tingled where he had touched her. A simple brush of another human being's hand, and her heart was beating as rapidly as it had as she'd danced at that wonderful, disastrous masked ball. It was ridiculous! She understood what was happening here. Simple human attraction, the physical response of one human to another. She could touch Ash innocently without being assaulted by these improper sensations . . . couldn't she?

When he was back beside her, drying a tin cup, she reached past him. Her arm brushed his. “It looks like I missed a spot on this one,” she said, wiping at a nonexistent spot on the cup. That one instant had answered her question. Apparently she
couldn't
touch Ash without awakening something inside her. Something she was certain was best kept unexplored.

 

When he'd seen the wagon coming and been presented with the familiar picture of Verna and Elmo and Oswald side by side and chattering away, something in him died a little. He'd known Charmaine wouldn't come back, so why did it hurt?

And then she'd risen from the back of the wagon like something out of a dream, a little unsteady and the most wonderful sight he'd ever seen.

He'd been drawn to her then, and had ended up standing before her trying to decide if she would run if he tried to kiss her. She came to him on her own, lifting up and slowly bringing her lips to his.

And then in the kitchen, when he'd brushed that speck of dirt from her neck, she'd jumped back like she'd been burned. He hadn't understood why, until she'd leaned across and against him for a cup that wasn't quite clean.

It was a cold, clear night. Winter wasn't here yet, but it was coming. Tonight's cold snap was just a promise of what was yet to come.

Moonlight shone through the window and touched a sleeping Charmaine. She was under two quilts, and still she shivered on occasion. Ash scooped his blanket from the floor and gently added it to the bedding. He wasn't going to get any sleep tonight anyway.

He was quiet and cautious, but her eyes fluttered open. “Ash, what are you doing up?” she asked dreamily.

“Can't sleep.”

She murmured sleepily, rolled on one shoulder, and then fixed her eyes on him. “What time is it?”

He looked at the clock that was sitting on the dresser. The moonlight lit the face. “Almost midnight.”

She was slowly waking up, her eyes becoming brighter, her voice clearer. “Aren't you cold?”

“Yes.” Freezing, and that was just as well.

She looked down at the blanket he'd added to her bed. “It's bad enough that I've taken your bed, you can't part with your only blanket as well.” She took the edge of the blanket, wrapped her pale, slender finger around the edge, and then she was still.

If she had any idea how much he wanted to crawl beneath that blanket with her, she'd no doubt give him another lecture on marital continence.

“Well,” she said primly. “This is ridiculous.” She scooted to the opposite side of the bed and held back the covers as if inviting him into the bed.

“Excuse me?”

“It's cold, we're reasonable adults, and we are married after all.” Her voice was soft and very calm. “There's no reason why we can't share a bed on a cold night like tonight.”

He should argue with her and tell her exactly why they couldn't share a bed. Didn't she understand? Didn't she know? Maybe she did. Maybe this was Charmaine's way of telling him she'd changed her mind about their pure marriage.

And then again, maybe she was just being considerate.

He climbed beneath the layers of covers. The warmth was heavenly, as he welcomed the heat from Charmaine's body that had been absorbed into the bedding. She had scooted all the way to the other edge of the bed, and lay perfectly still.

“Now, isn't that better?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

“Maybe you can sleep now.”

Not likely.
“Maybe.”

They were both silent for a few minutes. He could hear the ticking of the clock, Charmaine's breathing, and his own. There was nothing else.

“I saw my mother this afternoon,” Charmaine blurted. “She was behaving so oddly.”

“She's married to Stuart Haley,” Ash grumbled. “I'm surprised she's not a raving lunatic.”

He expected Charmaine to be insulted, but she laughed lightly. “That's true enough.”

A simple conversation to take their minds off the fact that they shared a bed, that's what they needed.

“Who else did you see?”

“Delia and Eula. We had tea in the office of the mercantile while Winston ran the store for a few minutes.” There was a hint of frustration in her voice. “We tried to have a civilized visit, but Sarah Elizabeth has recently added curse words to her vocabulary and she was quite disruptive.”

He laughed. “A few months back she decided to decorate my boots with licorice that had come right out of her mouth. Hell, I didn't even know she was there until I moved away and damn near stepped on her.”

“That's terrible,” Charmaine said, but she laughed lightly.

She squirmed, just a little, and her foot brushed his. “Goodness, you are cold,” she said as she drew her foot away.