Pamela Morsi (35 page)

That fact churned inside him like sour milk. He felt as if he were trapped with his foot on the tracks, a train bearing down upon him at top speed. There was little chance of escaping the inevitable. Yet he was somehow frantic to die trying.

“Have you got that other batch ready yet?” Tommy called out to him. “This one is nearly empty.”

The words pulled Rome back to reality immediately.

“Almost,” he answered and sat down to resume his task.

He was going to be cranking ice cream all day. That was what Miss Gussie wanted from him and that was what he was going to do. If Miss Gussie were ill or needed help, the man she was going to marry would be hurrying to her side. Amos Dewey would be racing after her. He was not, so all must be well.

Still Rome worried. As the afternoon dragged on and she did not return, he became even more concerned.

The shadows lengthened, his arm and shoulder aching from his endeavors. He’d cranked eight freezers of ice cream. Amos was helping him unload the last. With the worst heat of the day behind them, the demand for their cold confection had diminished. There was no line waiting for this share. Most folks were already beginning to gather around the stage near the center of the grounds. The special entertainment was ongoing. The city band had played several sessions. A quartet contest had pitted different groups of harmonious gentlemen against one another. And a children’s choir had delighted parents with recitations of “One, Two, Buckle My Shoe” and a noisy rendition of “Pop Goes the Weasel.”

The speeches would be coming up very soon. Typically the least popular entertainment. But today every man and woman in town was anticipating Pansy Richardson’s speech. No one intended to miss it.

Tommy was antsy not to miss anything and Rome sent the boy off.

“We might as well leave this here and go on over ourselves,” Amos told him. “Anyone wanting ice
cream can scoop it out, and we can come back and get the rest of this cleaned up during the fireworks.”

“You go on over,” Rome said. “I guess I should stay around here until Miss Gussie returns.”

“I doubt she’ll be coming back here,” Amos said.

Rome was concerned. “Is she ill?”

“No, not at all,” Amos replied. “She’ll feel a lot better tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. Her wedding. The wave of disappointment that swept through Rome was sickening. Miss Gussie, his Miss Gussie, would be forever separated from him by marriage to another man.

Everything he had worked for, his own business, respect in his community, those things paled in comparison to the prize that would soon be far beyond his reach. He couldn’t let it happen. He couldn’t just stand by and allow her to walk down the aisle into marriage with another man.

Gussie had schemed to get herself a husband. Pansy had schemed to get vengeance against the town. Rome found that he was no better than either of them when it came to something that was truly important.

“It looks like they are about to get started,” Amos pointed out. “Let’s go hear what Mrs. Richardson has to say.”

“You go ahead,” Rome told him. “I’ll clean up and be over in a few moments.”

“Are you sure?” Amos asked. “I don’t want to leave you here with this.”

“I’ll be finished in a couple of minutes,” Rome replied. “I won’t miss a thing.”

“All right,” Amos said. “I’ll see you there.”

“Right,” Rome answered.

He was smiling brightly into Amos Dewey’s face, but there was nothing but guile in his heart.

Whistling, he continued his task, gathering up the dishes and packing the freezer can in a tub of ice.

Rome kept one eye on the back of Amos Dewey. The moment the man disappeared into the crowd, the whistling abruptly stopped. He set the dishes down on the ground at the spot where he was standing, and as if shot like a sky rocket, he took off diagonally across the field toward the road to town.

He ran, one foot in front of the other. He left behind him the responsibilities of his business. The concerns of his community. The people of his acquaintance. He was running away from all of them, toward the only thing that really mattered. The woman he loved.

Loping across the meadow was made more dangerous by the gray onset of evening. He risked it anyway. He ran as if pursued. But then, he was being chased by time itself. Tomorrow she would be out of his range completely. Beyond his grasp for all time. If he was to ever have another chance with her, it would have to be tonight. Another chance. A chance to apologize, a chance to explain, a chance to beg another chance.

When he reached the road, he was able to pick up speed. He followed the hard-packed ruts made by innumerable wagon wheels as he hurried into town. He had no plan of what he would do, what he would say. He knew only that he must get to her side.

The roadway was deserted. The small town that was his home was dimly lit in sunset before him. He had always gone after what he wanted. He had struggled all his life to get ahead, to amount to something. Rome saw now with clarity that perhaps he might never have understood otherwise that the things he had most valued, respect and success, would be empty achievements to him were Miss Gussie not there to share them. The two of them had been partners of the mind
and spirit long before they were so in business. Somewhere along the way they had become partners of the heart as well. It had not been only an untamed moment suspended from reality. They had found mutual love. He was not willing to allow her to simply cast it off as if it were an inconvenience.

He reached the edge of town. It was almost eerie in its silence. Everyone was at the festivities. It was as if the whole of Cottonwood were his alone. His and Gussie’s. He traversed the empty streets, his footfalls audible on the macadam paving. He went to the crossing of Broad, around the corner of the park, down the way so familiar to him, to the modest home that was so very dear.

The house was dark, completely dark. Only the flutter of fireflies lit up the garden. Rome ignored the gate and jumped the fence, scanning the porch. She was not seated there. He took the steps two at a time and pounded, a little overenthusiastically, upon the door.

“Gussie!” he called out. “Gussie? Are you at home?”

He was winded from the run and bent forward, drawing in breath as he waited impatiently for her to answer the door.

She didn’t come. Minutes ticked past. He waited upon the porch.

Had Amos been wrong? Perhaps she had gone to hear the speeches after all. He’d come all this way to speak to her and she was not here. He was just thinking to leave when he heard the creak of a footstep overhead.

She was in her room upstairs. Was it possible that she had not heard him on the porch?

He pounded more insistently upon the door once more.

“Gussie!” he called out. “It’s me, Rome. I’ve got to talk to you.”

There was only stillness and quiet inside the house. Too much quiet. She knew he was there. Why didn’t she answer?

He banged upon the door again.

“Gussie! I know you are there.”

No response.

He walked out into the yard and gazed up at the open window of her bedroom.

“Gussie! Gussie, are you all right?”

“Go away!” she answered finally. “Would you just go away.”

Rome hesitated, thinking he should do just that. She was to be married tomorrow. Maybe he was being selfish. Maybe he was just thinking of what he wanted. Perhaps she loved Amos Dewey and truly wanted to marry the man.

He recalled with perfect clarity how her lips had felt upon his own. How she’d trembled in his arms as he’d touched her intimately. Had it been only a carnal pleasure? The kind of physicality that any male and female might find together. The lust-filled release of tension such as he and Pansy Richardson had engaged in with such frequency. Had it been only that between himself and Gussie? Or had it been something on a higher plain, something deeper, richer, more meaningful?

It had been all that for Rome. It had been love. And he was not willing to give up on it without a fight.

He called out to the darkness of the open window.

“Gussie, I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’m not going away unless you talk to me.”

“There is nothing to say,” she called back.

“There is everything to say,” he countered. “That is what is wrong. I still have everything to say to you.”

She came to the window then; he could see her only in silhouette.

“I’m not really up for receiving visitors,” she said.

“I’m no visitor,” Rome told her. “I am your friend and your business partner and … and I am a man who loves you, Gussie. Can you turn away so callously a man who loves you?”

“Go away. Come back tomorrow.”

She walked away from the window. Rome was bereft. It was her house. It was her choice. He should leave because she had told him to. He should leave and come back tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow was too late. Tomorrow she would be married.

“Gussie!” he called out to her again. “Gussie!”

She didn’t answer.

He turned to leave, but then couldn’t. It would be as if he were walking away from his only opportunity for happiness. And a good businessman never walked away from an opportunity.

Rome turned back and surveyed her house. He saw the front door shut against him. He saw the bedroom window wide open. Without another thought, he barged through the impatiens and the hibiscus bushes. After he made his way to the sturdy rose trellis that went past her window all the way to the roofline, he began to climb.

He’d gone up only a few feet when he grabbed a handful of thorns in the darkness and cursed loudly. He stopped for a moment to suck the bleeding injury to his pierced palm and then he was headed upward once more. Within a few more steps he did it again, only an arm’s length beneath her window.

“Damn!” he cried out again.

This time the sound of bare feet scurrying across the floor was unmistakable.

“What are you doing?” Gussie asked, horrified, as she leaned out and spied him on the trellis.

“I’m not going away, Gussie,” he declared with certainty.

“Get down from there before you fall and kill yourself!”

“I will not,” he told her. “I am Romeo and I am assailing your balcony.”

He couldn’t see her face, but he heard the anxiety in her movements as she hastily attempted to shut the window.

Rome hurried to reach it before she did. He’d just placed his hand on the edge of the sill when she slid the window closed. She’d missed his hand by a mile, but she didn’t know that.

“YEOW!” he screamed.

Immediately there were sounds of distress coming from her room. Abruptly the window reopened.

“Are you hurt?” she asked anxiously.

He grasped the inside of the sill with both hands and heaved his body halfway through the window.

“I am hurt, Gussie,” he told her. “I’m hurt because you won’t see me. You won’t talk to me. You won’t let me tell you how much I love you.”

“Go away, Rome,” she told him, backing away from the window.

“Too late,” he answered. Using the strength he’d gained handling huge blocks of ice, he raised his torso until he could brace himself with a knee and then he swung a leg over and climbed into her room. “I’m already inside.”

Across from him, he heard the scratch of a match against sandpaper before it illuminated the room. She lit the coal oil lamp on her vanity table and he could see her clearly.

Her summer wrapper was thin and gauzy, a sheer nod to convention to cover her nightgown. Her hair hung unbound down her back, surprisingly thick and wavy. She looked young and vulnerable.

“You’ve got to get out of here,” she said. “If someone sees you from that window, it won’t do either of our reputations any good.”

Rome had already been through town. He could have told her that there was not a soul to see them for miles around. But he did not. Instead he went to stand directly in front of the window and called out into the darkness.

“This is Rome Akers,” he announced to the empty street. “I’m up here in Miss Gussie’s bedroom.”

“What are you doing?” she demanded, horrified.

“Just what you suggested,” he answered. “I’m trying to ruin your reputation.”

“What!”

“You see, Miss Gussie, I remember exactly what you said,” he told her. “Hasty nuptials and an uneventful married life are the most foolproof remedy for a bad reputation.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying, Gussie, that I love you and I want to marry you.”

That was not enough, he thought. Amos Dewey also
wanted to marry
her. Half the men in Texas would
want to marry
her if they knew her. He had to be more resolute than that.

Rome crossed the room to stand in front of her. Her eyes were wide, questioning, as he dropped to his knees before her.

“Gussie Mudd,” he declared with indisputable authority, “by fair means or foul, I
am going
to marry you!”

Before she had an opportunity to disabuse him, he reached out, wrapped his arms around the backs of her knees and slung her over his shoulder as he rose to his feet.

His unexpected move either startled her into silence or knocked the wind out of her. For a moment she said nothing. And then her words were demanding and profuse.

“Put me down! Put me down this minute!” she ordered, jabbing her fists into his back. “Put me down!” He did.

Rome dropped her diagonally across her high feather bed. Her gauzy wrapper flew open, revealing a curvy, nicely bosomed female in a thin cotton nightdress. He grabbed the hem of it and promptly pulled the garment up to her neck.

She gasped and would have hidden herself from him had he not seized her wrists in his hands.

“Marry me, Gussie,” he said. “You were meant to marry me.”

The very last thing Gussie Mudd would have expected on the night before she planned to be married to Amos Dewey was to find herself naked in her own bed with Rome Akers leaning over her.

“What do you think you are doing?”

He held her wrists securely and she struggled against him.

“I don’t know, Gussie,” he answered. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He lowered himself atop her, covering her exposed body with his own.