Courting Miss Hattie (21 page)

The elder
Tyler
rocked back on his heels and studied his son. "It seems she was pretty enough to catch your eye," he said.

Embarrassed at his father's canny observation, Reed turned back to his work. "She's like a sister to me," he said. "You know I'm not interested in her that way."

"I know that she's been a friend of yours for a lot of years," Clive said. "And I also know that you never gave a thought about the courting of your sisters. You sound almost as jealous as protective."

Reed's head jerked up at his father's words. "Pa, you know that Bessie Jane is going to be my wife. I'm not the kind of man who'd be false to his betrothed." Yet as the memory of Hattie's face in the shadowy fog skittered across his vision and he saw again her eagerly parted lips and felt the warm firmness of her breast in his hand, Reed paused, angry at his own duplicity.

For days the remembrance of his vile behavior had stalked him. Hattie had been hurt and vulnerable that night. She had trusted him as a friend, and he had allowed his baser nature to override decency and good sense. Still, he couldn't quite bring himself to wish it hadn't happened. No kisses had ever been so sweet, no innocence so appealing.

Clive Tyler didn't miss the swiftly changing expressions on his son's face but thought better of questioning him about it. "You and Hattie have been friends for a good long while," he said. "It wouldn't be against nature for that friendship to deepen. Hattie would make a good wife for a farmer. It's not strange you should notice that."

Reed shook his head. He forced himself to think not of Hattie's kisses but of Bessie Jane's tears the night he'd spent his passion inside her. "Bessie Jane and I are to be married in the fall," he said adamantly. "Do you think I should forget that?"

"I don't think you'd play Bessie Jane false," his father said. "I do know that every man may have occasion to notice another woman. Once you're married, you just ignore it and go on with your life. When you're still single, a man would be a fool not to at least ask himself what it is that got his attention."

"I'm already as good as married," Reed said. "I've made a promise, and I intend to keep it. Besides," he added, attempting humor, "I've got trouble enough with one stubborn woman. Two would put me in an early grave!"

Clive laughed, as his son had intended, but he couldn't quite forget the expression on Reed's face.

* * *

The Jessup parsonage was only a stone's throw from the church. Preacher Able, like his congregation, was a farmer. It was all good and well to have a church for Sunday morning, but a man's family had to eat.

Seated in the fancy parlor,
Ancil
contrived to have the couples play bridge or Parcheesi, hoping to change his luck. He was sure that losing at dominoes was not helping him impress Miss Hattie.

The reverend would have none of it, however. "Don't even suggest such a thing,
Ancil
," he said emphatically. "Games with cards or dice are the devil's handiwork."

Watching
Ancil
shift uncomfortably, Hattie hurriedly changed the subject. "Preacher Able, I think you should make a point to go by and see Jake
Leege
. He is not looking well at all."

"Where did you see Jake
Leege
?" Millie asked, astounded that her friend would take note of such a derelict.

"I had
Ancil
drive me over to his place," Hattie explained. When the preacher and his wife looked at
Ancil
, he shrugged, indicating the excursion had not been his idea.

"The man is turning yellow," Hattie said in a horrified whisper. "I've never seen such a thing in my life. His skin looks like a summer squash."

"My heaven!" Millie exclaimed. "Do you think it's contagious? I've heard tell of yellow fever down in the bayous. Do you think it's that?"

Hattie shook her head. "Harmon says it's from the whiskey he drinks. It stirs up the
biles
in his system, and they just give him the jaundice."

"
Leege
is a sad case, for sure," Preacher Able said. "He's been a slave to corn liquor nearly his whole life."

"Well," said
Ancil
, "if the old man is turned yellow, his days of slavery are about over." He glanced at Hattie and offered an offhand explanation. "My
stepdaddy
drank
himself
to death. He turned yellow before the end. It was a sight to see, I remember."

Shuddering at the thought, Hattie gave
Ancil
a comforting smile, reminding herself that his life, too, had been difficult.

"I don't understand how you got interested in Jake
Leege
," Millie said.
"I
almost never see him myself."

"I really didn't get interested in Jake," Hattie admitted. "But his son, Harmon, is working with Reed on the irrigation for the rice field."

Ancil
gave a slight snort of laughter. "Have you been out to see Miss Hattie's experiment in agriculture, Preacher Able?"

"No, I can't say as I have," the preacher answered, and smiled at Hattie. "I have heard talk all over town that you and Reed have got it into your heads to grow a patch of rice."

Before Hattie could reply,
Ancil
said, "A patch of trouble is what they're about to grow. I tried to tell Hattie not to let that boy talk her into such nonsense, but you know how partial she is to him."

"It's not a patch of trouble," Hattie replied evenly. "Actually, rice is much easier to grow than cotton. There isn't all that chopping and picking. All that's really required is a constant and dependable water source."

Ancil
shook his head disparagingly. "It does take water. Preacher, they flood those fields and
keep
that water standing inches deep all summer." At Drayton's words, the preacher looked askance. "What they'll most likely grow,"
Ancil
continued, "is the biggest crop of mosquitoes this county has ever seen."

Hattie felt her temper rise at
Ancil's
criticism and the preacher's nod of concurrence. "Rice is the future," she declared. "Look at all the land around here that's too wet for cotton. Unless we find a way to get some use out of that land, most of our young people are going to have to move west to farm. There are acres and acres here that are just going to waste."

Preacher Able admitted that was true, but
Ancil
had another solution. "We've got to drain that land," he said with certainty. "In the next ten years, the government is sure to come in here with one of those drainage projects and get us all fixed up."

"We don't need it drained," Hattie said with just as much certainty. "That's not good for the ground. We just need to control the water."

Ancil
smiled tolerantly and patted Hattie's hand. "I do admire a woman that takes an interest in the crops. But cotton is still king in the South, and I think most of us like it that way."

Bristling at his attitude, Hattie couldn't help but retort, "The boll weevils will be very pleased to hear that."

Finally aware of the
Jessups
'
embarrassed
silence, Hattie glanced around and caught sight of Millie's wide worried eyes.

Rising to her feet, Millie gave Hattie a signal to follow her. "Come and see the new curtains I've made for the kitchen, Hattie. I've been dying to show them off."

Following Millie through the neat little parsonage, Hattie couldn't help but reflect on the nice home and family Millie had, comparing it with her own life of loneliness.

"Here they are," Millie said, gesturing to the one large kitchen window that offered a nice view of the plowed fields of
cotton surrounding the house.

"They're lovely, Millie," Hattie said, admiring her friend's ability to make something so attractive and useful from the cheap cotton sacking material.

"Hattie," Millie said slowly, as if speaking to someone simpleminded, "you really mustn't dispute Mr. Drayton's word."

"I'm not disputing his word," Hattie replied. "I'm just telling the truth as I see it. I know a good deal more about farming than he does."

Millie shook her head gravely. "Knowing more can't be helped. But you need to at least pretend that you value his judgment."

"Millie, he's wrong about the rice. I'm as sure of that as I'm sure the sun is going to rise tomorrow. He says in ten years we'll be getting a drainage project. I believe that ten years from now this whole county will be planted in rice."

Millie smiled, but obviously didn't believe her. "That won't happen, Hattie. All these men know about is cotton, and they'll keep on raising it."

"You're wrong," Hattie said flatly.

"Maybe so. And it's not much problem for you to say so to me. But, Hattie, women just do not contradict their
menfolk
."

"
Ancil
Drayton is not
my
menfolk
!"

"And he never will be if you get on your high horse about such nonsense," Millie warned. "If you're right, fine. Time will tell. Ten years from now, do you want to be right and alone or right and married?"

Hattie blushed. Millie had a point, but Hattie hated to admit it. "I can't start acting like an empty-headed miss. Nobody would believe such a change."

"I'm not suggesting you pretend to be something that you're not. I'm just saying that when the man you want says something stupid, bite your tongue."

"You mean I'm not supposed to think for myself?"

"You can think all you want. Just be sure to keep your thoughts to yourself."

Hattie stubbornly crossed her arms. "Is that how you got Preacher Able, by not speaking your mind?"

Millie flashed a wicked smile. "That and an occasional well-calculated glimpse of my ankles." Raising her skirt a few inches, the preacher's wife boasted, "The reverend still says they're the trimmest ones in town!"

* * *

Reed had finished the courting swing for Miss Hattie and was in the shed sorting through tins of nails and lengths of chain, trying to find the right hardware.

His father's idea that there was some kind of attraction between him and Hattie was completely wrong, he assured himself. Hattie was his friend. He'd been going over to her house, talking and laughing with her for
years,
and not once had even a whiff of desire been present. Honesty forced him to correct that. There had been no desire until recently.

It was almost as if seeing Miss Hattie with another man had brought home to him that she was a woman. But she wasn't
his
woman. He shouldn't be thinking about Hattie. Bessie Jane should be occupying his mind. In truth, he'd been avoiding Bessie Jane, avoiding her eagerness, her sensuality,
her
temptation. Like too much perfume, her attention was cloying. He couldn't afford to marry yet, and he wasn't about to have a child on the way before he was ready.

Perhaps that was why he desired Hattie. Of course that was it, he decided, sighing as a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He
was just needing
a woman, and who was safer to lust after than the unattainable Hattie Colfax? If he went to Bessie Jane needing loving, she'd give it to him, and Lord knows what the consequences might be. But panting after Miss Hattie, who'd doctored his scraped knees and could remember having to order him to wash his face and hands, was about as safe as a man could get.

That was what Reed tried to tell himself. But memories of Hattie's sweet kisses spoke otherwise. She didn't seem such a big sister any longer. Even friendship could be heated to the boiling point. The only thing to do was to refocus his thoughts on Bessie Jane. He'd still have to try not to bed her, but there was no reason he couldn't imagine it.

Carrying the proper S connectors and bolts back to the swing, he let his mind wander to that long-ago night with Bessie Jane. He hadn't undressed her, he remembered that. The lack of privacy in her father's barn had precluded even partial nudity. But he'd unbuttoned her blouse and pushed her camisole up to her neck to taste the abundance of her bosom. Pulling up her skirts, he'd discarded her drawers back over his shoulder.

Later it had taken them half an hour and lighting a lantern to find them again. He'd been so hurried, so
eager,
it had been over almost before it had started. Bessie Jane had touched his body in ways he wouldn't have thought nice girls knew about. Afterward she had cried so. That was the most vivid memory, her tears.

It did no good to remember if what he remembered was tears. Fantasizing about the next time with Bessie Jane instead, he'd sworn he'd take his time, do it right. Determinedly, he concentrated on the taste of her nipples, the slick hot welcome of her entryway. He allowed his mind to wander in lustful revelry, hardening with desire as he dreamed of the purposeful thrusting, the moans of pleasure in her throat, the breathy rush of her kisses. But as he envisioned pulling away from her sweet lips, he saw that the face beneath him, the body that closed around him with such eagerness, was not Bessie Jane Turpin's.

* * *

The moon was high and the night clear as
Ancil
Drayton walked Miss Hattie to her porch. She'd tried to follow Millie's advice and watch what she said. She'd found it easier to talk about
Ancil's
children and his past, subjects he obviously knew more about than she.