Courting Miss Hattie (14 page)
Jerking her straw hat off the wall, Hattie bolted from the porch so quickly, she startled the goat. "Don't a one of you give me a lick of trouble this morning," she warned the occupants of the barnyard. "These are going to be the fastest chores ever done."
Reed laughed at her threats to the dumb farm creatures, but remembering his own remark to the mules, thought it best to refrain from comment.
Hattie showed she was as good as her word, gathering eggs and straining
Myrene's
milk with her usual efficiency. Like her partner, though, her mind was down at the rice field.
Within an hour the two were walking side by side, leading the team to the bluff. The sun wasn't yet hot, and Hattie carried her straw hat, letting the wind blow through the wisps of hair that had escaped the proper knot at the nape of her neck. With the sky a
bright
blue and the bees droning their sweet summer song, she felt as carefree as a girl. Reed's smile didn't hurt the situation one bit.
"Look at that cotton, Miss Hattie," he said, pointing to the fields as they passed. "It's already knee-high. I tell you, it's going to be a good year for farming."
"I suspect so," she said, then added with a mischievous smile,
"but
I'll always remember this year as the year we started
the rice."
At first she stood at the side of the field and watched Reed follow the plow in mud up to his calves.
"Gee! Gee!" he called to the team repeatedly. Disliking the strange new experience of plowing in mud, the animals took direction only sporadically.
Listening to his constant commands and the slapping of the leather reins against recalcitrant rumps, Hattie quickly realized that leading the mules in this mud would be the right idea. She hitched her skirt up to the tops of her boots, tying a big knot in the excess to keep it out of the way, and waded down into the boggy bottom.
"Miss Hattie!" Disapproval vibrated in Reed's voice. "You get out in
this,
you'll have mud clean up to your eyeballs."
Grasping the lead on the cheek of the left mule, she retorted smugly, "It's my ground, Plowboy. If I'm thinking to take a bath in it, it's none of your concern."
Looking at her over the backs of the team, Reed raised an eyebrow. "You'd best be careful about calling names,
Plowwoman
.
You're the one that's got that mule's lead."
She
squinted
her eyes in a mock threat. "Perhaps we'd better change places, then. I don't want you to be thinking you're the boss here."
He shook his head. "I think your choice shows you know just which end of these beasts a lady best attend to."
The plowing was not done in straight furrows for planting. The purpose was to break up the soil so that the levees could be built. The rice would grow in standing water, and in order to control the water, raised embankments would be built all around it. The going was slow, and the plow got bogged down in the slippery mud, further disturbing the animals.
By
both tired
, sore, and very dirty. Before attempting to eat the food they'd brought, they made their way to the river to wash off the worst of the mud.
Scrubbing his hands and arms, Reed glanced over at Hattie squatting beside him. The knot that had held her skirts out of the mud had ridden up slightly, and the knee of her white cotton drawers was clearly visible. Around the gathered flounce that covered the knee was a tiny trim of delicate pink rickrack. Reed's eyes honed in on that little piece of femininity, and he was startled at his reaction. Straightening abruptly, he wandered down the bank away from her, adjusting the fly on his trousers and mentally chastening himself.
It had been a good long time since he'd been with a woman, he thought. Not since that sad-sweet night with Bessie Jane. Still, he was a man who generally maintained control of his baser nature. And surely at twenty and four, the sight of some old maid's
underdrawers
shouldn't have him sprouting like a cucumber in the middle of the day.
But, he admitted, Miss Hattie wasn't just some old maid. He'd never thought about her much in the past, but since Drayton had started to court her
…
well, he had started to look closely at her. He'd held her too, he reminded himself, thinking of her soft warmth and the sweet clean smell of her.
Reaching down, he jerked up a long sprig of
Johnsongrass
. With reflex motions from childhood memory, he held it between his thumbs, lifted it to his mouth, and blew across the edge of the blade. The shrill whistle distracted him from the strange feelings for Hattie that plagued him.
Hattie was like a sister to him, he assured himself. The fact that he was aware of her as a woman was just a combination of her new status as
Ancil
Drayton's lady-friend and his misdirected desire for Bessie Jane. He would simply have to be more careful about his urges. He sure didn't want to ruin a good friendship with Miss Hattie over a scrap of pink rickrack.
"I heard you whistling that
Johnsongrass
," she said, coming up behind him. "You calling for help or just making noise?"
He turned to look at her cheerful face, her big
horsey
smile. The knot in her skirt was gone and the fabric now flowed modestly to the tops of her mud-covered boots. "I guess I was just seeing if I could still do it," he said.
"It seems like a lifetime since I heard that sound."
He nodded. "It's because there aren't any children around here. Once you pass through those child things, it takes new little ones to remind you of them."
"I guess you're right," she said thoughtfully. "It's funny how the good Lord and nature take care of us. It's the cycle of life. Just when we're getting old enough to forget all about the fun and foolishness of play, we start having little ones of our own, who are close enough to the ground to see the simple joys of the earth."
Reed gazed at her with almost tender compassion, and she realized immediately why his expression bespoke pity. Despite the laws of nature, she still had no babies to conjure up such remembrances.
"I mean for most," she corrected herself hastily with studied nonchalance. "Not everyone wanders the same path."
Her smile was brave, but not totally convincing. Silence fell between them as they avoided each other's eyes.
"I'm about starved, Miss Hattie," Reed said at last, breaking the tension. "Why don't we get those dinner buckets and have us a feast."
They walked back along the shoreline, Hattie in front. She turned frequently to comment on the prolific tendencies of her laying hens and exclaiming about the exceptional quality of her new radishes.
Just before they reached the picnic spot under a low-hanging willow, she tripped on a root. She might have fallen, except for Reed's arm grasping her around the waist and pulling her against his side.
"Are you all right?" he asked, not letting go of her.
"Yes, I'm fine," she answered, though she did feel foolish. She was perfectly capable of standing on her own two feet, but for some reason, she wasn't eager for Reed to lose her.
She looked up into his eyes. Their cinnamon-brown color was only a tiny rim circling a deep blackness as he stared at her. She felt a peculiar pulsing inside her, as if her blood were suddenly electrified. Her gaze dropped to his lips, slightly parted as his breath rushed quickly through. A sudden startling desire to taste those lips assailed her, and she ran her tongue across her own lips in anticipation.
A choking sound forced itself from Reed's throat, and he released her immediately. "Be careful, Miss Hattie." His voice had a strained, distant quality.
"Yes, of course," she answered, not even aware of the drift of conversation.
"There's always something around here to trip you up." From Reed's tone, it was hard to tell if he was speaking to her or himself.
* * *
It was near dusk when Reed and Hattie brought the team back to the house. Both were disgracefully filthy—despite washing off in the river—incredibly tired, and foolishly happy. They separated at the barn, and Reed led the mules to the trough to water them for the night and clean the mud and grime from their hooves. As the mules drank, he watched Hattie continue on to the back porch.
Myrene
trotted up to her, and she gave the goat a friendly pat, but she didn't linger. Without even hanging up her hat, she grabbed the big copper bathtub leaning against the outer wall and carried it through the back door. Reed smiled,
then
turned his attention back to the mules.
Hattie couldn't remember ever having felt so grimy. She had washed off the best she could at the river, but after a full day in the muddy field, she was soaked to the skin. Her hair had partially dried and was caked to her head as if styled by a dirt dauber, and the smell and taste of mud assailed her senses. She pictured Reed and herself slipping and sliding in the thick black mud, often falling, and she couldn't help but smile. The residual dirt on her face cracked, which made it seem even funnier.
As she put the water on to heat, she found herself dwelling on the pleasantness of the day. From the moment Reed had agreed to help her with the chores to the parting at the barn that evening, it had been an adventure.
She set her hat on the counter. It was still damp and covered with the black dirt. After it dried, she thought, she could brush the worst of the soil out of it. It would never be quite the same, but she figured the fun was worth at least one old
workhat
.
Peeling off her mud-soaked clothes and putting them in the washtub for the morning, Hattie continued to think about all that had been said and done. She felt such a part of the rice now. When it succeeded, it would truly be her success as well as Reed's. She was inordinately pleased that she shared something with him. Every year when he sold the cotton and paid her
her
share, she was proud, but it wasn't her cotton. The money was hers by right, yet it didn't give her a feeling of accomplishment. She hadn't felt that with Reed since the summer her father had died. This year, she vowed, when that rice headed to the mill on a flatboat, it would be her achievement too.
By the time she was stripped to her camisole and drawers, the water was boiling. Protecting her hand with a pot holder she had knitted for her mother on some long-ago occasion, she carefully poured the steaming water into the tub. She added cold water from the pump by the bucketful until it was just the right temperature,
then
drew another kettle for rinse water. She put it on the stove and quickly discarded the last of her clothes. Modestly covering herself with her hands, she gratefully stepped into her bath.
With her knees up, she could lie back almost to her neck and feel the muscles in her back and shoulders relax. She closed her eyes and moaned with pure pleasure. She was warm. She was comfortable. She smiled languidly and thought of Reed.
Reed! Hattie sat up immediately as if the house were afire. What was she doing thinking about Reed? It was
Ancil
Drayton who was courting her. If she was going to sit in the bathtub and dream up fanciful thoughts, it should be
Ancil
Drayton who played the central role.
What nonsense, she thought, to be picturing Reed Tyler smiling down at her. Reed was like a brother, a younger brother. She'd known him since he was wiping his nose on his sleeve. She loved Reed, of course. She would never deny that. He was the closest thing to family that she had left. She wanted the very best for him. He'd have this land and a pretty little wife in Bessie Jane. Someday she'd bounce his children on her knee, and maybe they'd call her Aunt Hattie. But she could not, would not, have foolish schoolgirl daydreams about him.
Grabbing the washrag and soap, Hattie began scrubbing herself with a vengeance as her mind raced on. Reed was her best friend, her business partner. Getting skittish notions about him would be a disaster. What if he suspected? She stopped and covered her face with the washrag. If he thought she was pining after him, he would think her pitiful. He'd probably tell Bessie Jane how sorry he felt for his sad, besotted old-maid friend. And Bessie Jane would tell every living human in the county! Hattie's heart began palpitating with anxiety. She would die of humiliation! Just the idea had her face flaming with shame.
Trying to get hold of herself, she purposely slowed her fevered brain. She had to be calm and rational, she thought. Concentrating on taking deep healthy breaths, she washed herself thoroughly and systematically. There was no need to go off half-cocked. She simply needed to figure out what had happened and whether she had actually done anything stupid. If she had humiliated herself, she wanted to be the first one to know.
She mentally retraced her steps, carefully, methodically. She had not acted any differently that morning than usual. Reed didn't make her nervous, as
Ancil
did. She never had trouble talking to him or feeling relaxed in his company.
They had talked and worked together just like always. There had been those few strained moments at
