Courting Miss Hattie (41 page)

Reed would have none of it. Sliding one arm under her knees and the other around her back, he lifted her.

"Reed!" she exclaimed. "Put me down!"

He feigned dropping her on the floor, and she squealed with fright before he pulled her close.

"I think this is a tradition," he said. "Or at least it's our version of it."

* * *

The sunlight crept across the tangled sheet as Hattie opened her eyes. She was not surprised to wake up in Reed's arms. It felt as natural as breathing. He awakened as she did, and she felt his sweet sleepy kiss in her hair.

"Good morning," she said, purring like a contented cat before turning to him. She winced slightly, and he noticed it.

"Sore?" he asked with concern.

"A little, I guess," she admitted.

"I think you've got a right." His hand caressed her naked body beneath the sheet. "I think we overdid it a bit for the wedding night."

"Married people don't normally do it that many times?" she asked with innocent curiosity.

Reed's grin was half pride, half delight. "Not
if
they expect to live long enough to farm the next day."

Hattie joined his laughter and eased herself closer to his body. She already loved the tenderness and warmth of being near him. "Does that that
mean
we won't get to do it again for a while?" she asked.

"If
you're sore, Hattie," he said seriously, "I think we should wait."

"I'm not that sore!" she assured him quickly. When he still looked hesitant, she sighed in resignation. "How long do we have to wait? A week?"

Reed looked genuinely alarmed. "No, not a week. Surely not a week."

"How soon?"

He shrugged. "Maybe tonight?" It was more a question than a statement, but Hattie was delighted.

"I think I can wait until tonight," she whispered, then leaned down to nip his nipple with her teeth.

"Stop that, Hattie," he ordered with feigned sternness. "If we're going to wait until tonight, you've got to help me."

"Why should I help you? Waiting is your idea, after all."

He rolled her over onto her back. "You're trying to tempt me, you little wench. I already wasted half a day in your bed. The chickens are starving, the hogs are losing weight, and
Myrene
gave up banging on the door an hour ago. And still you want to keep me here." He took a playful bite out of the corner of her lip. "Do you know what I think, Mrs. Tyler?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you
like
this naughty-things-you-do-in-the-bed stuff."

"That's your fault," she complained. "If you didn't make it feel so good, I wouldn't like it at all."

Reed's laugh was heavily laced with old-fashioned male pride. No strutting rooster had ever been more self-satisfied. "Well, I bet you're glad this morning that you didn't wake up with old
Ancil
Drayton," he said without a pretense of modesty. "He would have never given you what I did last night."

Hattie raised an eyebrow at his conceit. "If I'd married
Ancil
, I would have seven children. That's something you didn't give me last night."

His mouth dropping open in shock, Reed's flash of jealousy made him forget his vow. "You want children, I'll give them to you," he said, then spread her knees with his own and slid inside her.

She cried out sharply, and he stopped immediately. "Hattie, did I hurt you?" he asked anxiously, and would have withdrawn if she hadn't wrapped her legs around his waist.

"Not too much," she answered. "It hurts a little, but it feels so good too."

Gently, easily, Reed began to rotate his hips, striving to give her pleasure without causing her the slightest twinge of discomfort.

"Would you really give me children, Reed?"

"That's what this does, Hattie. You know that."

"Yes, I know how it works," she whispered. "But would you want me to have your children?"

He visualized her swollen with his child and found
himself
strangely intrigued with the idea. "Yes, Hattie, I want children, and I'd want no one else to be their mother."

She moaned as she squirmed beneath him, the rhythm drawing her away from the conversation. "I want a big family," she murmured. "A big family like your mother has."

Reed began to plunge more forcefully within her. "If Drayton would have given you seven, then I'll give you eight."

She lifted her hips to meet his thrusts, and her head began to flail back and forth on the pillow.

"Would you like that, Hattie?" he said against her ear as his tempo quickened. "Eight children? Is that what you want?"

Hattie no longer listening to him as she arched her back, her nails digging into his shoulders.

"Eight
…
is that what you want, Hattie?" he asked again as her eyes glazed over and she threw her head back in sweet agony.

"Eight, Hattie? Eight?" he cried out as he felt her wild contractions pulling him over the edge with her.

"Yes! Yes!" she screamed before they both fell through to the near side of heaven.

When their senses recovered and breathing became less of a task, Reed gently kissed her forehead before collapsing beside her. His hand covered his eyes for several minutes as the two lay in respite. Then Reed's lips curved into a wide grin. "You know," he said with adequate solemnity. "It's a good thing you like this, 'cause if I'm going to give you eight children, we'll have to do it a lot."

* * *

The production of eight children became the
Tylers
' private joke during the first week of their married life. Reed took every opportunity to touch, taste, and
kiss
his wife, claiming it a necessary prerequisite to the production of offspring. Too dazed to protest, Hattie found her husband's ardor much to her liking. Rather than discouraging his constant advances, she goaded him with his hasty promise,
then
willingly left the evening dishes while he labored to fulfill his pledge.

Before dawn one morning Reed woke her with words of congratulation. With his protesting bride still dressed in her nightgown, he carried her out to the barnyard.

"Have you lost your mind?" she asked him, not sure whether to laugh or knock him over the head.

"You want eight children, Hattie," he said. "Well, I've been up half the night getting them for you."

"What are you talking about?"

Reaching the pigsty, he made his way inside and strode to the
farrowing
house.

"Mabel's had her litter!" she exclaimed delightedly. "Why didn't you wake me?"

"I didn't
know,
myself. I woke up about an hour ago and thought I heard something outside. By the time I got here, she'd already had three. I had to stay to make sure that while she was still laboring, she didn't wallow around and roll on one of them."

They ducked into the door of the dry, well-ventilated building, and Reed at last stood Hattie on her feet. Mabel was
lying
on her side, resting from her ordeal, her breathing heavy with weariness. The tiny little pigs lay like a row of mewling sausages along the belly of the huge black-and-white sow.

"They're wonderful!" Hattie
said,
her voice breathy with awe as she dropped to her knees beside the
farrowing
nest.

Placing his hands on her shoulders, Reed unconsciously kneaded the muscles as he watched his wife's delight in her new additions to the barnyard. "I'm sorry there's only eight," he said. "I know you expected more."

"Eight is perfect. Why, this is Romeo's first try. I'm sure he'll get better with age."

Reed dropped to his knees behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and resting his head in the crook of her shoulder. "So you think older males are better at this?" he asked with feigned annoyance.

Pursing her lips as if genuinely considering his question, Hattie finally replied, "I don't think
it's
age so much as practice."

"'Practice'?" Reed considered the statement for a moment. Cupping her breasts in his hands, he said, "Yes, I firmly believe in practice."

* * *

The workweek at Colfax Farm was both busy and idyllic. Long hot looks and suggestive references to sundown enhanced the weeding of the garden, the tending of livestock, the cleaning and repairing of buildings and fences, and the field work.

Although Reed had carried a dinner bucket with him for years, Hattie found that her day was not quite so long when she packed a basket and carried it out to Reed in the fields. They would talk and plan and laugh together as they ate, then both would return to the task at hand—she with a lighter step and he with a cheerful whistle.

One afternoon, as they sat beneath the cottonwood tree that overlooked the rice field, Hattie lazily leaned back against the trunk and watched Reed as he talked about rice.

"The South is changing, Hattie, and the cotton culture is going the way of the old plantation. Once the land is broken up and the fields planted, one man can manage three or four hundred acres of rice until harvest. It doesn't take gangs of pickers or whole communities of sharecroppers to make it work. If we were to go into rice exclusively, we could double or triple the size of this farm and still handle it ourselves."

Hattie found his dreams exciting and his enthusiasm infectious. "What about the harvest? How will we handle that?" she asked.

"Rice is a modern crop. That's one thing that really impressed Harm when we were in
Helena
. While sugar and cotton planters still rely on strong backs and good mules, the rice farmer is ready for the new century."

His eyes sparkled as he described the wonder of the industrial age come to the farm. "They've got binding machines,
Hattie, that
cut the grain stalks and tie them in bundles without the
touch of a human hand."

She giggled at the idea. "This machine has little fingers that tie the rice up in knots?"

"Wait till you see it work, Hattie. It's a marvel of modern agriculture."

"How are we going to get a machine like that for our field?"

"Uncle Ed's got one. He'll help us get the rice shocked and braced, so we'll be ready whenever the threshers head through this way. His rice will probably be in before ours is ready, so I asked him to come up and help us with the harvest."

Hattie smiled with delight. "That would be wonderful! He'll stay with us?"

"I'll ask him if you want me to, but he'll probably be stopping over with my folks, catching up on his visiting and such."

"Of course, you're right. It's probably a good opportunity to see your family."

Reed nodded. "I don't know if I'll be ready for company that soon anyway." His voice became husky and smooth as warm molasses. "I'm kind of enjoying having all these private evenings with my wife."

Hattie couldn't keep the grin of pride from her face. His desire for her was separate from his love of the farm, and she was just selfish enough to encourage it.

"What are you smiling at, Mrs. Tyler?" he asked, pulling her closer to him.

"I was just thinking."

He chuckled, and his eyes danced with mischief. "Were you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"What are you thinking?"

"I'm thinking that we're newly married and all alone," he answered as he reached a big calloused hand to the tiny buttons of her shirtwaist.

"Reed!" she pushed his hand away and folded her arms protectively across her breasts.

"Sorry, Hattie," he said with genuine sincerity, but his smile never wavered. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted to see you in the daylight."

"What do you mean?"

"Have I told you that you've got a really pretty bosom?"

She stared at him in shock. "Reed
Tyler
! I've never heard of such a thing."

He clucked his tongue with feigned reproof as he barely held back a wicked grin. "Well, I'm not surprised," he said. "I doubt seriously that many in this community have had an opportunity to observe your bosom as closely as I have."

"Nobody else has seen me!" she declared unnecessarily.

When he laughed at her outrage, she continued her tirade. "Woman
don't
have pretty
bosoms!
A pretty face or pretty hair, but not
…
People just don't speak of such things."

"Don't worry," he said, laughter dancing in his voice. "I'd never mention it around town. Don't want the other fellows getting curious."

"You!"
She punched him hard in the belly, but his hard sinewy muscles deflected the blow, and she elicited only a slight rush of air.

Raising his hands to the heavens, he implored divine intervention. "I tell the honest truth and give my wife a genuine compliment, and she beats me for it."

"I should beat you on the head where it could do some good!"