Harmony (5 page)

Quite by accident, the curtains rippled like ghostly spirits on a gust of dusk-borne wind. The parlor grew painfully quiet, as if the occupants suddenly realized that what they were talking about could be hurtful to a woman who didn't have a man in her life, namely one Miss Edwina Huntington who would never see twenty-four again.

Edwina told herself that she didn't care, that their talk of husbands didn't discompose her. But hidden away, in that closed-off place that protected the rend in her heart, their remarks did wound—only she would never let them know how deeply.

Mrs. Kennison spoke first. “Well . . . we can't have our girls gadding about uptown by the blacksmith's and getting into trouble for it. I was all for the idea when Miss Huntington told us about her plans, so I have no qualms enrolling my Camille in the finishing school. I can't think of a better model for my daughter.”

A sigh of relief fluttered against Edwina's rib cage. She went to the parlor organ and picked up the receipt pad and applications she'd set on one of the jutting little shelves.

As she put the carbon in order and positioned her writing pen, the other five ladies announced their desire to have their girls enrolled in the school also. Edwina informed them that the tuition was to be five dollars a month. All replied that their husbands would see to it that she was paid before the end of the week for the first month's expenses.

Half an hour later, Edwina saw the clutch of women to the door. As Mrs. Plunkett's expansive skirt faded from her sight, Edwina stayed on the porch and wrapped her arm around one of the dark red posts. She pressed her cheek to the cool wood and gazed at the rising moon. Sycamore boughs spread dark against the creamy night sky, and frogs croaked from a distant pond.

She should have been totally elated, brimming with sheer joy. She had succeeded with the first phase of financial recoupment. Unhappily, that fact barely softened
the edge of disappointment that she wouldn't be using her business diploma the way she'd envisioned.

The shock of finding out that her father's life insurance had nearly run out because of medical expenses incurred by both her parents still gave her cause for disbelief. Life insurance was supposed to ensure that the beneficiary bore no hardships. Her mother had weathered humiliation by mortgaging the house, then ignoring the mail in their postal box.

Delinquent bills from various cure-all doctors and druggists who advertised in newspapers had been adding up for nearly a year. Only in the past four months, since her mother's death, had Edwina found out about the debts. A week ago, a letter had come from the Equity Mortgage Company in San Francisco, California, stating the house would be repossessed in ten days if she didn't make an immediate payment. She'd written a check from the bank account that had been bequeathed to her and sent it off the very afternoon she'd received the intent-to-foreclose notice; then she'd gambled nearly all the remaining funds on the warehouse.

All her plans to leave Harmony and seek employment in Denver had come to a grinding halt. What Edwina Huntington wanted for herself no longer mattered. The family's respectability was at stake. She couldn't just pack up and ignore the responsibility.

Accepting her lot, she'd assured the debtors that she would take care of the bills as soon as possible. Her desire to educate the local girls was only one of the reasons for the school. The other was because she desperately needed the income.

So she would now help girls develop high standards of morals and manners. Silly, really, when coming from her.

Edwina sighed softly. When she was nineteen, she had thought she knew exactly what her life was going to be because she controlled its course. She had no intention of meekly accepting or making the best of anything—and that had meant not staying in Harmony. Armed with the discovery of her independence, she planned her
bright future and left to attend Gillette's Business College for Ladies in Chicago, Illinois.

The first year had been wonderful, the second even better. During her third, she'd met Ludlow. Her fourth had been heaven . . . but with hell in the lurch. A mere week before graduation, the bliss crashed around her, and the frantic letter had come from home. She'd returned right away and stayed by her mother's bedside to the end.

She'd remained in Harmony after the graveside service, and she'd never gone back to that bohemian world in Chicago, that place of laughter and music and free thinking. She'd gotten her certificate through the mail, missing out on the pomp and ceremony with the other girls . . . with Abbie.

Always aspiring, and failing, to conform to social propriety, Edwina had come to know she was different. There was an energy in her, an almost disturbing capriciousness, that wouldn't go away—no matter how hard she tried.

With the handful of katydids shrilling in the trees, Edwina tapped her toe to the wavering beat, wishing she could dance for fun once more.

•  •  •

Tom opened the heater's swing cover with a rag and snagged the handle of a lumpy metal coffeepot. The hiss of burner wicks and the odor of fuel oil filled the warehouse, but the heat hadn't spread enough for him to take off his thick flannel overshirt.

Nudging the cover closed with his elbow, Tom set the pot of coffee on the end of a sawhorse where he had an empty cup. Shay had gone to the livery to pack up a few things while Tom stayed to lay out the modified store before Ab Trussel came by on Thursday to put up the wall.

After pouring himself a naked cup of the brew, Tom walked around the area holding his coffee. Barkly's bloodshot gaze followed his movement, but the hound's head stayed positioned on his forepaws; he didn't budge from the warm floorboards in front of the heater. Tom
paused at the seven-foot spread eagle that he'd dragged to the morning light streaming from the window. Earlier while rummaging through the storeroom, he'd found tin plates, an assortment of tools, and unfinished projects. The tin bald eagle had been tucked in one of the corners with a dusty drapery covering it. The broad wings were amazingly lifelike in their depiction of feathers, and the tilt of the bird's head could only be described as proud. Tom felt like he'd stumbled onto Christmas. He wanted that eagle to mount over his entrance door. If Miss Edwina Huntington took a shine to the bird, she would have to fight him for it.

As if saying her name in his head could conjure her, there she stood, peeking into the window. He stepped out of the sunlight and into the shadows, watching as she cupped gloved hands to her temples to view the interior better. Her balance wavered, then her shoulders took a slight dip. She must have been standing on her tiptoes. The four-on-four glass didn't offer him clarity while perusing her; there were too many cobwebs and a film of dirt. What he
could
see was her expression: the brief white of her straight teeth as she bit her lower lip, then the singular arch of one perfect brow as she lowered her hands. She was thinking.

He didn't like that in a woman.

Taking a slow gulp of coffee, Tom went to the door but stopped before turning the knob.

“It looks locked,” he heard Edwina say from the other side.

Another female voice replied, “Yes, Miss Edwina.”

“I should have gotten the key from Mr. Stykem before Mr. Wolcott got it.” A dull clattering sounded—like a hoop bucket with a cake of soap inside. “That man is an animal. You should have seen him at the lawyer's office. He looked like he'd been taking a dust bath with the chickens in front of Storman's feed mill. And he just about smelled as ripe as a pigpen.”

“Barkly,” Tom whispered. The folds of skin above the
dog's shoulder-length ears prickled to attention, “Come here.”

“It's too bad he's got interesting eyes,” Edwina continued. “A man like that ought not to have interesting eyes. I'm sure he's used them against innumerable women, trying to get what he wants, then he . . .”

Tom tuned her rattling voice out as the click of Barkly's toenails headed his way. As soon as the hound reached the door, Tom said, “Sit.” The dog did so. Even sitting, Barkly made an intimidating foe. The top of his rusty-colored head came up to the start of Tom's hip.

“. . . a lingering gaze like his could give women all the wrong impressions. Why, if I wasn't—well, never mind. I suppose we should find out if the lock's engaged.”

Barkly licked the dangle of drool off his rubbery muzzle, but got only half of it as the door swung outward. Then a high-pitched scream of terror started a hellacious ringing in Tom's ears.

“Dammit all!”

Only after a scant moment, Tom comprehended that both he and Miss Huntington had uttered exactly the same thing at the same time. His gaze lifted to hers with a hard glare of surprise. A bloom of pink streaked across her cheeks, and she looked away before he could read anything from her eyes. Curiously regarding her, he pondered the possibility that indelicate thoughts might be hidden in that outwardly decorous head of hers.

“Next time you're wondering if a door is locked,” he drawled, “why don't you see if it'll open first before you talk it to death. You never know who's on the other side.”

“Or whose ferocious dog,” she countered, warily keeping her distance on the stoop. “Can you please tell it to move so I can come in?”

Tom took another leisurely drink of his coffee. He rather liked having her at his mercy, especially after the colorful things she'd said about him. He'd never once used his gaze to get a woman to do what he wanted. His hands had always done all the convincing.

“Mr. Wolcott, will you?” came her impatient request.

Lowering the cup, Tom said, “Barkly. Out.”

The bloodhound rose from his haunches but didn't walk directly outside; his wet nose began to twitch with the excitement of trying to corral a good scent. Soon, the loud sound of snuffling could be heard, and Barkly started giving Miss Huntington's skirts the once-over.

She took a hop backward, bumping into the woman at her side. Tom gave the other woman a fleeting glance. Built like an ox, her body looked more solid than a block of wood; an iron twist in her gray hair didn't do a thing to lessen her hard appearance.

“Do something!” Edwina squealed, the bucket in her hand swinging.

“Once he's on a scent, he goes deaf to my voice.” Dragging his nose across the black-and-white-checked fabric, the dog inhaled sharply four short times, then snorted out the scent on the fifth beat, as if to clear his nasal passages. “Must be that cat of yours that has him all worked up.”

Tom had witnessed Barkly go through this process countless times and knew there was no point in telling the dog to back off. To Barkly, getting in as much as he could of a good sniffing was worth any reprimand.

Edwina made an attempt to clutch her skirts away, lifting them higher. The dog's nose just elevated with her movement, rather than being deterred. Her gaze fell onto Barkly's face. “My goodness, this dog has no eyes.”

“He's got two. Both brown.” Using a gentle grip, Tom grabbed a handful of Barkly's scalp and pulled upward, giving the dog's face a lift. Undistracted, Barkly kept sniffing, navigating a path higher toward what would have been Edwina's lap had she been sitting. Of course, she misconstrued his investigation of the area as being of something else more vulgar.

“Stop that, you nasty thing!” she said, choking, swishing the side of her skirts to her middle for protection. The satiny swish of her petticoats sounded provocative.

Tom let the dog's skin go slack. Then with a sideways
glance, he took in an appreciative eyeful of black-stockinged ankles, a frothy swath of underwear lace, and even a little bit of some attractive shins.

Sneezing, Barkly left a spray of slobber on Edwina's skirt before he decided he'd had enough and trotted on.

“Oh!” she cried with outrage.

Downing a quick sip of his cooling coffee, Tom shrugged. “Must be a potent cat. He couldn't keep all the scent in.”

Edwina entered the building with a shake of her skirts, the strapping woman close on her heels. She must have been hired help, because she carried the bulk of the cleaning supplies. The pair went to the center of the school's side and deposited a mop, bucket, rags, broom, window brushes, and bottles of ammonia.

Briskly running her hands across her arms, Edwina couldn't disguise her chill from him. She wore a tailored hip-length jacket, but the fabric didn't appear to be very heavy. Kid gloves encased her slender fingers.

Tom wasn't much for chitchat. He was here to work, but he figured he ought to offer what he had.

“If you ladies want to stand by the heater for a while, you're welcome to.” He set his empty coffee cup on the sawhorse. “I've got coffee, too.”

“No, thank you.” Edwina's feminine voice filled the cavernous warehouse.

“I make a mean pot. Black as sin and hot as hell. You'll have to use my cup, though, if you want some.” He sent her a suggestive smile.

“Definitely
no, thank you,” she responded tartly.

“Suit yourself.” His mouth curved into a half grin, then he picked up a disk of red chalk and began to walk the perimeter of his area.

Tom more or less forgot about them as he marked off the floor measurements of his counters, shelves, and aisles and made the circles that denoted stuffed animals. He saved the grizz for by the heater, where the bear could be a topic of conversation. Standing with his back against the storeroom wall, arms folded over his chest,
he surveyed his handiwork. A movement caught his peripheral vision, and his survey strayed to the sway of Edwina's hips as she scrubbed the top panes of the window while standing on an overturned crate.

A hairpin worked loose from her high twist, and she paused to nudge it into place with the back of her wrist. Stepping off the crate, she dunked her drab cloth into the water bucket, rung it out, then climbed back on the makeshift stool. An air of capability surrounded her, bringing a vigor to her concise movements.