Marrying Stone (4 page)

"I'm so sorry you hurt your hand chopping wood," she said.

There was something about her backwoods accent that was charming, beguiling. The hairs stood up on the back of Roe's neck. He began feeling distinctly uncomfortable and
yet enticed. Nervously, he glanced toward the door wondering what in the world was keeping Jesse.

"We all must use our hands to work," he answered her evenly. "Why even putting up this piccalilli involved using your own."

"Oh, Mr. Farley." Her words were a breathy whisper. The stars in her eyes shone as brightly as jewels. Pushing an errant strand of burnished blond hair away from her face, she nervously tucked it behind her ear.

Her reaction was curious. It was as if he had said something intimate, personal. He tried to remove his hand from her grasp, but she didn't easily relinquish it. The space between them crackled.

Roe pulled back and cleared his throat. Obviously making conversation in the Ozarks was different from the dining tables of the Bay State. He was unfamiliar with the strange air of warmth that surrounded him. It was friendliness on a level that was both seductive and a little bit menacing.

He smiled with excessive politeness at the young woman, hoping to dispel the unexpected closeness of the little cabin. He took another big bite of the piccalilli relish and savored it for a long moment before nodding.

"Very nice," he said.

She was gazing deeply into his eyes as if entranced.

"Oh, yes, it is very nice," she whispered.

Suddenly alert, Roe looked at Meggie curiously. Her comment was extremely strange. But nothing could have prepared him for the moment when she raised his knuckles to her lips and graced them with the gentlest of kisses.

J. Monroe Farley sat frozen in shock as the tremors resulting from the unexpected intimate touch coursed through him. He was not unfamiliar with the attentions of the female gender. But he was not prepared for the reaction the young hill girl had provoked.

"I was right," she said. Her blue-gray eyes were open wide, but glazed with visions that were inside her head. "I knew this morning when I saw you standing with the sun behind you that you were my prince come at last."

"What?"

Meggie Best let out her breath quickly as if she'd been holding it a long time. She picked up the carved wood spoon that he'd left carelessly in his plate. "See the spring buds and first flower," she said with quiet reverence. "It's a token of affection, Mr. Farley. And you accepted it from me." Her smile was dreamily serene. "And this, well, it's just piccalilli. But I'm hoping it'll be nostrum to make our love forever true."

She had moved up closer, her face only inches from his own. J. Monroe Farley choked. "Miss Best, I—"

"Oh, Mr. Farley, something really fine, some wonderful token, would be the taste of your sweet lips."

She leaned forward, her mouth very close.

He stared at those lush pink lips in disbelief.

"My dear Miss Best," he cautioned uneasily.

"It's all right, Mr. Farley, it's just the two of us here."

Again, he made a choking sound. It wasn't permission, but she took it as such. Parting her lips and turning her head with unpracticed expertise, her mouth was on his for only a second, one tiny, warm, thrilling second. It was as if a spark of lightning ran through them.

"Oh, Mr. Farley!" she exclaimed, her lips still close to his. "I knew when I saw you that you were the one."

"Uh." Roe made the startled sound. He hardly had time to make sense of her words before she threw her arms around his neck and plopped herself down in his lap.

The young Ozark woman squeezed him tightly to her ample chest and parted her lips. She was kissing him with such enthusiasm even a stone would have responded.

Monroe Farley was no stone. His life had not been one of beau around town, nor was he a slave to his passions. But he'd held women in his arms often enough to relish the  pleasure. And the feel of the eager young arms that embraced him now was pleasure indeed.

With a sigh of satisfaction, he gave himself up to the kiss, tasting and exploring the sweet lips that were offered. He allowed his hands to clasp her waist, unbound by restrictive stays and soft beneath her thin covering of homespun cotton. He wanted her. Desire surged through him, hot and keen.

"Meggie," he managed to choke out as she pressed herself more tightly against him and sighed. Her firm round bosom was flattened against his chest and her hands fluttered up and down his back.

"Miss Best, I don't—" he tried again.

Her lips were everywhere, his mouth, his cheeks, the soft skin of his earlobe, and the ticklish length of his throat.

Desire, sizzling and ardent, overrode his better judgment and he kissed her back with passion. He allowed his own hands to roam the long length of her back and along the sides of her breasts. Pulling her even closer, he thrust his tongue into her mouth and was rewarded by her tiny cry of response. The sound enflamed him. One hand held her waist while the other was seeking the hem on the homespun skirt.

They broke apart momentarily to catch their breath. He felt her heart pounding against his chest.

"Oh, Mr. Farley, I knew, I knew," she whispered. "The minute I saw you, I knew. All the fellows on the mountain have been giving me the eye for years, but I knew someday you'd come for me and you have."

"What?" Roe's thoughts were befuddled.

"From the time I was a little girl, I read all the fairy tales, Mr. Farley. And I knew, there was a gentleman prince out there somewhere and that someday he would come to this mountain and love me and marry me and make me happy for all my life to come."

The words
love
and
marry
seeped into Roe's passion-addled brain and splashed a bucket of cold water upon his desire.

"What?" Immediately he removed her hands from his person. She grabbed his hands in her own and placed them once more around her waist.

"I waited and waited. At night I dreamed about you 'til I was near crazy with wanting. I thought I might grow old waiting. But you have come at last, Mr. Farley. Just like I always knew that you would. And now I will love you forever. Do you want me to let down my hair?"

"What?"

"Do you want me to let down my hair? Like Rapunzel," she added almost shyly. "Oh, Mr. Farley, this mountain is my tower and now you've come for me." She released her hold on him only for a moment to pull at the pins in her hair. They scattered about her as thick waves of dark honey-blond hair fell to her shoulders.

"Miss Best, I—"

"Oh, Mr. Farley, I do love you, already," she told him, hugging him close once more. "And the fact that you like my cookin', well it couldn't be anything but fate."

"I don't know I—"

"Mr. Farley, I'm going to make you the finest wife that any man on this mountain ever had."

"Wife?" The word felt like a chicken bone stuck in his throat.

He came to his feet with such haste that he knocked over the chair they'd been sitting on and dropped the young woman in his arms to the floor.

Meggie Best stared up at him in dismay. "Dad-burn and blast! You dropped me right on my tailbone."

Roe was gazing at her in horror. He glanced toward the doorway and held his arm out as if to ward her off.

"Miss Best, I believe you have the wrong idea here."

"Wrong idea?" For a moment she seemed genuinely  puzzled. "Why, you were kissing me," she said. "How could I get the wrong idea?"

"It wasn't—well, I didn't mean. Well, you were kissing me!"

"We were kissing each other," she said.

"Yes, well, I didn't mean for that to happen," he said.

Her eyes narrowed. "You didn't?" Her voice was suddenly wary. "What are you about, Mr. J. Monroe Farley?"

"I'm not
about
anything, Miss Best. I was simply eating a bit of luncheon and you threw yourself upon me. I realize these mountains are isolated. But I assumed there would be sufficient males in the area that a woman would not need to accost strangers." He was overstating the case a bit, but he hoped this woman would understand his point.

She gazed up at him from the sweep-polished dirt floor. Her hair was wild about her face and her skirt was up around her knees, revealing two very naked female legs and a pair of bare feet.

"Accost strangers!"

"Miss Best, I—" he began, but couldn't quite think of what words to speak next. Slowly, he began to back up toward the door.

"Where are you going?"

"I think perhaps I should be getting along. It's nearly afternoon already and I do have…" he began. As she continued to stare at him warily he held out a hand. "Miss Best, I certainly never meant—"

"Never meant what?"

"Well, I never meant…" He looked down at her, disheveled and dangerous on the floor. "I never meant more than to carry on a simple dining-table conversation. That fellow, that prince that you are waiting for, well I'm sure we can both safely assume that I am not him."

Her face was pale as she stared silently at him.

"I'm really not the type of man you'd want for a husband. You'd really require someone more—more like yourself.I'm from a completely different world, a world of civilization and scholarship. Where I intend to return at the earliest opportunity."

She stared at him in apparent disbelief for a long moment, then fury took over. "Why you—"

"Believe me, Miss Meggie, I never intended any disrespect or—"

"You lowlife, lowland, city-rounder." She came to her knees, her voice getting higher and shrill. "You worthless excuse for a two-toed varmint."

"I beg your pardon?"

"You sweet-talked me into a kiss and now you're thinking to throw me out like I was a churn of oversoured skimmings."

Roe glanced toward the doorway. Her voice had grown louder and angrier with every word. He was more than anxious to take his leave. He began inching toward the exit.

"Do you think you can come in here in my own house on my own mountain and sweet-talk me out of my virtue over a jar of piccalilli?"

"Miss Best, please, I wouldn't—"

"You wouldn't, would you? Jesse!" Her voice was as loud as hog calling in a thunderstorm and wild with fury. "Jesse Best, get in here this minute."

Farley was still easing toward the door. What if her simple brother were to misconstrue his actions? Despite his later protestations he had kissed the young woman quite of his own free will. And he had touched her in a manner not consistent with polite conversation. He had no idea what the customs of these mountain people might be. But he was fairly certain that he had overstepped the bounds of propriety.

"Miss Best, Meggie, please."

"What's it, Meggie?" Simple Jess, huge and blank-faced, asked curiously as he stood blocking the doorway. When he  saw Roe he grinned amiably. "You having a set-to with my new frien'?"

Her eyes were wild with anger as she hurried to her feet. She was clearly outraged. "Your new
friend
is making unwanted advances to me."

Simple Jess, three inches taller and twice as muscled as Roe, looked at him with surprise.

Roe swallowed nervously. After spending an hour watching the youth split wood, Roe was sure the big mountain man could easily break every bone in his body without even working up a sweat.

"Jesse, I can explain," he began. His voice was calm and rational. "Your sister has misconstrued… well perhaps not misconstrued, but…"

"He tried to take advantage of me, Jesse!" she snapped. "You're my "brother. Beat the tar out of him."

"Miss Best, really. It was only a kiss."

"It was a kiss all right," she snarled angrily as she hurried to her feet. "And it turned you right into a frog! Beat him up, Jesse."

Shaking his head, her brother clearly didn't like the prospect. "He's my frien', Meggie," Jesse protested. "I don't want to fight him."

"There is no need to fight," Roe assured him quickly. "I merely wish to make a humble apology and express to you, Miss Best, my deepest remorse over any distress my presence here might have caused you."

"The only apology that you can make to me, Mister J. Monroe Farley, is to get your worthless hide out of my sight and never venture in these woods again," Meggie stated adamantly.

"I deeply regret any… any—"

Roe stopped speaking and brought a hand to his stomach. A strange pained sound emerged from his lips and he bent over as if stricken with a cramp.

Jesse eyed him curiously. "You know yer face is lookin' kind of downright green," he said.

Roe didn't wait to try to make his explanations. In a rush of panic, J. Monroe Farley put his hand over his mouth and raced past Jesse out the door.

A sharp, stabbing pain seemed to rip through Roe's gut as sweat broke across his brow. He ran away from the smoky-smelling cabin, away from the taste of green tomato relish that now burned in his throat. He ran to the cool shade of the Ozarks woods, his head spinning and his stomach in cramps.

Weakly he staggered and dropped to his knees next to the shallow stream that skittered along shiny, slick rocks. He labored to catch his breath. A swirl of green flies buzzed around his head. Ripping open the tight, starched collar, he fought the dark weakness that crept up on him. He cupped a handful of the icy, Itchy Creek water and splashed it liberally upon his face. He trembled from the combination of freezing water and nausea.

"Roe! Roe!" He heard Jesse calling but couldn't waste his strength to answer. He felt faint and the reality of that weakness embarrassed him. He lay down against the cool spring grass hoping to garner strength, but slumped to the ground and blackness swirled around him.

"He's here, Pa!"

Vaguely, he heard a voice calling out behind him. It seemed unearthly and far away but it revived him nonetheless.

"He's here by the crick."

Help was on the way. Help was almost here. The thought bolstered him somewhat. He rolled to his back and felt the warm spring breeze upon his sweat-drenched skin as he gazed at the slate-blue sky overhead. Thickly leafed branches of sassafras trees stretched out into the cloudless  sky, but still a gray darkness cast shadows before him. He was sick, green sick, as Jesse had said, and miserable.