Courting Miss Hattie (25 page)

"No, that's exactly it. He doesn't like
me,
because I know things about him that he'd like to forget."

"What kind of things?"

Harm opened his mouth, about to answer, then seeing something in her face—trust, vulnerability—he closed his mouth abruptly. "Forget it, Bess," he said. "The old man just never liked me."

Shaking her head as if she didn't believe it, she defended her father. "He only wants what's best for me."

"That's exactly what I want for you, Bessie Jane. And
I
am
what's
best for you!
No man will ever know you or love you the way I do. Bess, use your heart as well as your brain."

He reached out for the first time to touch her. She flinched slightly,
then
allowed him to take her hand. "Your father only knows about needs like food, clothing, and shelter. He worries about those because he doesn't understand the other needs you have, sweet Bess."

He lifted her fingers to his lips and kissed them, sending a current of gooseflesh up her arm and a rush of breath from her lips. "I know about those other needs." He slipped his arm around her back, bringing her closer. "You need a friend, someone you can talk to, the way we've always talked."

"Yes," she whispered, their faces close, her eyes watching his lips as they inched toward hers.

"You need love, sweet Bess. The kind of love that a man can give only one time and forever. My heart, my life, is yours, and you've known that for years."

"Yes," she repeated, as if in a trance. "We have always loved each other—so totally, so secretly."

Pulling her tight against him, he pressed her breasts against his chest. He could feel the hard, distended nipples rising eagerly against him. "And you need a man who can make you scream with pleasure," he murmured, his mouth only inches from hers, his breath hot with passion. "Do you remember how I made you scream with pleasure?"

She closed her eyes. "I only wish I could forget it."

"Oh, no, Bess, never forget it. I can't let you forget it. I've got to always remind you."

His lips were on hers then, demanding, practiced, and she succumbed easily to the temptation, opening her mouth, eager for plunder. He filled her, leaning back until she lay at his side on the worn wood-plank dock. He ran his hands knowledgeably along her body. Remembering with pleasure all the hills and valleys of Bessie Jane Turpin, he
refamiliarized
himself with all of her, lovingly, tenderly, as his mouth continued its reunion with hers.

He released the buttons at the back of her dress and pulled it down, exposing a creamy shoulder. He could not resist the expanse of tender flesh and slid his mouth down her neck.

As he tasted her skin, he could hear her breathy protest in his ear. "I mustn't, I mustn't," she whispered, even as she grasped the delicate pink lace that covered her and bared her breast for him.

Accepting her invitation, he suckled her, not gently, releasing
a hoarse cry of desire from her lips. Jerking up
her skirts and pulling her thighs apart, he thrust his own thigh high against her, and she squirmed eagerly upon it.

"Sweet Bess," he whispered. "My sweet Bess, I would taste you tonight. Will you let me taste you again?" His request was punctuated by tiny
lovebites
on her tender breast.

"Yes, oh yes," she moaned as he rolled her onto her back. Bringing her knees up, he spread her wide before him, and she
was unashamed in her desire. Harmon ran his hands along the
inside of her thighs until he found that hot eager place that was already wet for him. He touched her there, and she arched against him.

"You are mine, sweet Bess!" he declared. "No other man will ever touch you the way I do."

Bessie Jane opened her eyes at those words and saw his hands move to the ribbon of her drawers.
Reality abruptly intruded. "No!" she screamed, in near hysteria. "I can't. We can't." Sitting up, she thrust herself away from him, pulling her skirts down. She curled up like a frightened child, trembling,
her
eyes wide with horror at her actions.

He moved toward her, grasping her arm. Passion glazed his eyes as he refused to relinquish her. "You can't stop now, Bess, not now. I can't stop."

Her gaze went to his trousers and the hard evidence of his desire. "I'm sorry," she said, tears flowing from her eyes. "You make me forget who I am. I can't let you touch me like that again, Harmon. Never."

He didn't allow her to get away. Wrapping his arms around her, he held her close in a firm but tender grasp. "You don't want my mouth? What would please you, sweet Bess? I love you. How do you want me to show you tonight?"

"You mustn't do anything," she said, trying to pull away.

"Bess?" His arms tightened around her, and she jerked back, as if frightened. "Easy, Bess—you know I wouldn't hurt you."

"But I can hurt
you.
We can't do this, Harm. I can't do this. I am promised to Reed and…"

Harm stared at her for several minutes, passion and pain warring with intellect. "You're right. Reed is my friend. He's our friend. It isn't right for us to share this while he thinks you're still his. Tomorrow, we'll go together and talk to him. We'll make him understand that we have to be together."

"No."

"If you want to talk to him yourself, that's fine. But I must talk to him to. I want him to understand."

"No, Harmon," she said her bottom lip still trembling. She was unable to meet his eyes. "We can't tell him, because I'm not breaking it off with him. I will marry Reed Tyler in the
fall."

Harmon was surprised by her statement but shrugged it off. "You can't marry him, Bess. Not with the way you feel about me. Do you still doubt that you love me? Do you doubt that you want me? After all these months of seeing him, it's still the same with us." Running his hand down the bodice of her gown, he teased the nipples that had hardened against the pale blue fabric. "Try to deny that you still feel the same for me!"

"I can't deny it." She pushed him away and covered her face with her hands. "I can't deny it, but I can't have it
either."

"Sweet Bess—"

"No! You mustn't call me that anymore, and you must listen." She raised her head determinedly and looked at him as squarely as she could manage. "I love you and I want you, the same as before," she said quietly. "I admit that. It's because I'm weak, Harmon. With you, I've always been weak. From that first time, I never said no, never hesitated to follow your lead. The touch of your hand was all it took to convince me to forget everything my parents tried to teach me."

He started to move toward her, but she held up her hand to stay him. Taking a deep breath, she continued. "No one has ever made me feel as you do. With you I'm so alive and so free. You never look at me like a dressed-up doll, or a dessert to be sampled, or a toy to be owned. I can take off my mask with you. I can just be Bess and know that you won't be disappointed."

Looking at him, she saw that his handsome face was open, his sparkling blue eyes alive with hope. She swallowed nervously as she set her course to dash it. "That is a powerful weapon, Harmon. Love is something that is very hard to fight against. When I knew we could never be and I promised Daddy I would marry Reed, I still realized how easily you could change my mind. How quickly I would break my promises."

She studied her nails as sorrow gathered in her throat, making her voice low and hoarse. "I can't give myself strength to deny you, but I can give you strength to never desire me again."

Harmon frowned, anxious and confused. "What do you mean? Bess, nothing you could ever do, nothing you could say, would ever change the way I feel about you."

She tucked a stray hair behind her ear and smoothed her skirts—anything to put off the moment of her doom. Looking up again, she gazed deeply into the eyes of the man she loved and measured her words, her voice even and controlled. "I tried to think of a way to keep you from wanting me, to keep you from ever thinking to have me in your arms again."

"Sweet Bess, having you in my arms again is all I ever think about. Only having you again at last will ever change that."

Willing, eager
even, to take his censure, his pain, she spoke quietly and with cold finality. "I have been with Reed Tyler."

Harmon looked at her quizzically, at first not able to comprehend, then blanched. His mouth opened as if he found it difficult to catch his breath. Staring at her, pain distorting his face, he shook his head in disbelief. "You wouldn't," he said forcefully. "Never, Bess. I know that you wouldn't."

Her silence was her answer. He folded his arms across his chest as if protecting a wound. "No!" His cry was harsh and primitive, like an animal's. He closed his eyes and slowly lay back on the dock, moaning in pain.

Bessie Jane watched as tears leaked from the corners of his eyes.
"Good-bye, Harmon," she said quietly, then got up and walked away, her step as forced and heavy as an old woman's.

* * *

The wheel on the floodgates was turned, and Hattie watched as the water from the river flowed in a rush across the field of sprouted rice, barely six inches tall. Neither of the two men working the gates had offered much more than a civil word to her, but she was determined to be at her rice field, despite bad-tempered men.

The days since Jake
Leege's
funeral had been busy and confusing. Reed's irrational anger had apparently persisted. He hadn't shown up for breakfast the rest of the week, and he seemed to go out of his way to avoid her.

Harm was no better. He'd made himself scarce for three days,
then
returned without a word of explanation. He did his job with a cold, quiet efficiency that was almost frightening.

Hattie had decided that the best way to handle her partners these days was just to steer clear of them. With that in mind, she'd kept away from the rice field and tended to her stock. On Sunday,
Ancil
and his children had come to dinner. Her garden was well on its way, and she filled the children up on butter beans and fried okra.
Ancil
seemed pleased and captured her hand under the table to give it a friendly squeeze.

She enjoyed the day with the children. She and
Ancil
sat with
Cyl
and
Ada
making clover chains as little Buddy followed
Myrene
through the yard like a shadow. The boys were trying to get their kite up, and much of everyone's attention was focused on their efforts. The wind was never quite right, and time after time, just as the boys began to holler with success, the kite would make another fatal dive to earth.

Cyl
laughed at their failures with such enthusiasm, Fred finally lost his temper and stormed over to their shady patch of clover. "Okay,
Cylvia
Drayton," he said, his cracking voice hoarse with frustration. "You think you can do better? I dare you."

Immediately accepting,
Cyl
ran eagerly to the kite. To the chagrin of Fred and the others, the bright blue kite was high in the air within ten minutes.

"
Cyl
can do anything,"
Ada
told Hattie, her eyes wide with wonder.

Hattie nodded her agreement but added, "You do some amazing things to. Look at this chain, Mr. Drayton. I think your daughter has a real talent."

Ancil
gave a halfhearted glance at the green-and-white necklace of clover blossoms. "It'll be dead in an hour," he said.

The young girl's face fell.

"But it's very pretty now," Hattie said, trying to save the day. "Look how carefully she's cut through the stem with her nail to weave in the next blossom."

Finally hearing the meaning in Hattie's words,
Ancil
actually took note of his daughter's handiwork. "It looks real nice,
Ada
," he said. To his amazement,
Ada
squealed in delight and flung her arms around his neck.
Ancil
stared at Hattie, clearly appalled at the child's behavior. He received a smile of encouragement that helped him live through the strange outpouring of affection.

Mary Nell was not interested in anyone or anything. She spent the entire afternoon sitting on the porch swing—or lying on it might be a more accurate description. With her head on the armrest and one knee up in the air, she kept a foot on the ground to rock herself back and forth. She was totally uninterested in anything that went on around her, but then, she'd already sown her crop of evil words that morning.

They had been leaving church when Hattie had found herself by Mary Nell's side.

"They say you're such a good person," Mary Nell said, "because you took care of your mother until she died."

Hattie was slightly taken back by the statement. "I'm not sure that makes me good," she replied.
"My mother needed someone to take care of her, and there was no one else."

Mary Nell smiled
broadly. "That's what I thought too. It's
not that you're so good—it's that you didn't have any choices. Nobody wanted you, but I'm pretty. Everybody says so, and now that I'm getting my girlish figure, I suspect I'll be running off to
Memphis
to marry pretty soon."