The river jewel, p.8
The River Jewel, page 8
“I’m not going to a show tonight. But, I do have to get my horse, Thunder, back to be fed and brushed.”
Her eyes lit up. “Your horse? Where’s he?”
He faced the woods. “Let’s see. Going backward, I edged along the cove to where that little strip of land divides it from the river and then shot straight back. He’s right near a clear stream of rushing water.”
“Well, go on, get him. Put him in the front paddock there. Plenty of water in the trough and grass. Marigold, my mare, is in the back paddock. Maybe they’ll end up being friends.”
**
Landon rode Thunder to the paddock, removed the saddle and blanket and brushed him down. He felt bad that his arrival had surprised Tilly, that he startled her and caused her knife to slip and cut her hand, but he appreciated having the chance to get to know her. So lost in spending time with her, he’d forgotten his original reason for going there. By the time he got back to Tilly she was bent over the vat of boiling water near her worktable.
“No, no. Let me.”
She appeared hesitant to allow him to help, both knowing he had no idea what was required of the process. She opened her mouth to say something but then turned back to her work.
“I’m a fast learner. I promise.” He held his hand up as though swearing in court. She glanced at him then back at her vat before backing away, holding her injured hand away from the steam. “Remove the meat and rinse them with fresh water. I’ll start the pot inside. When we’re done, I’ll pay you with a meal. Thunder can eat, too. Then you saddle up.”
He nodded and watched her stalk toward the backside of the cottage. “Where you going?”
“Spring house for butter and cream.”
“I’ll get that. You sit.”
She turned on her heel. “Just do what you’re told. Faster we work, the better.”
He drew back.
She lifted her chin. “Storm’s coming. Can smell it. Best to work quick so you can get on your way.”
He felt the words, where you belong, hang in the air. She was right, but he didn’t want to go.
With both of them back in the cottage, she barked orders. “Chop the cayenne peppers for me. If I do it, the spices will burn my cut.”
He stood at the counter with her, their bodies casually touching as he reached for the peppers and she handed him the knife. Their arms brushed each other as they worked, and he kept glancing at her, the look of concentration on her face making him yearn for her... more than seeing her body half-clothed had. He told himself to pay attention to her orders, and he did. Until he couldn’t. She’d started humming and her sweet apple-smelling hair made him watch her even as he worked.
Chop. Chop. Gasp. He held his hand in the air, frozen. He’d nearly caught his fingertip because he couldn’t keep from watching her. She turned. He exhaled with a chuckle and she rolled her eyes.
She was so at ease in her cottage, doing work the women in his family would never do in a million years, work he’d never, ever been interested in watching someone do. Yet. Here he was enthralled. Every stir of a spoon, slice of a knife, and reach for a bowl drew his eye to her fluid movements. He couldn’t name the novel sensations that curled in his belly and spread throughout his body, making him crazy for this person he’d not known three days before.
“You’ll have to nurse me if I get any closer to my finger with this knife.” He held up the tool, admiring its sharp blade and craftmanship of the pearl handle.
She cocked her head like he was a problem to solve.
“It’s really beautiful. What you do,” he said. “These knives are as beautiful as jewelry.”
She straightened. “Thank you. And, that.” She flicked her good hand at him. “That’s... nice.”
“What?”
“Your chopping. Nice work chopping small.”
He studied her for a second, wondering if she was mocking him. She was direct for sure, but unlike when his father corrected him, even when Tilly criticized or offered praise for something as insignificant as chopping a cayenne pepper, it felt nice. Just like she said, and nice was the only word he could think to describe it, to describe any of what was happening.
“Now the butter. Add that to the pot. And flour. I’ll whisk when you’re done. I can manage that.”
He followed her instructions while she laid a cloth across the bowl of oysters and turned it to catch any dirt, while saving the liquid.
“We’ve got to make the pepper sauce nice and hot. For those challenged in love, it’s absolutely required. Add the cayenne to the vinegar, garlic, a little oil there.”
“It’s required to be hot?”
“’Course it is. How else can a couple survive? A little spice keeps things moving from problem to solution. Without spice, miserable couples will develop, then get stuck—tired, slow, and well just stuck in all the bad that comes by in life. I’ve seen a few, they wear the misery like winter coats and coon-caps. Even in summer.”
“So an argument’s a good thing?”
She drew a deep breath and exhaled as she added cream, black pepper, oysters and half the juice. She stirred, her hips gently moving as she drew circles in the liquid. The curve of her waist tied with apron strings made him want to loosen them and run his hand down the contours of her body.
“Yes. Like I said. The hot sauce keeps things moving.”
“Hmm,” he said.
She switched to stir with her bandaged hand.
He didn’t want the heat to agitate the wound. He hopped up. “Here, let me.”
Each stood on one side of the pot and she dumped another helping of oysters into the stew while he stirred. He stole a look at her, a spiral of her red hair bouncing near her cheek. She brushed it behind her ear. Her skin was the color of cream, sunkissed, alive compared to the women he knew back east who hid away from the sun each day. His stomach fluttered again, enjoying what he felt as they talked. “Tell me more,” he said.
She looked confused.
“About the stew.”
She grinned. “The oysters are a lure in themselves. They amplify what attracted the couple in the first place if they’ve gone stale. Or.” She stuck her finger in the air. “If one of the couple hasn’t yet figured out what’s attractive about the other, the oysters open their eyes.”
“Really?”
“Butter and cream’s sweet to temper the cayenne. Salt, so neither of the pair walks over the other.”
“You believe this stew is some sort of aphrodisiac? You were serious when you said that someone ordered a love potion? A well-read woman like you believes such a thing?”
She stared at him, her eyes, blue like the denim trousers he bought the other day swallowing him. “Everyone who requests it believes. Doesn’t matter if I do.”
She added more cream, black pepper, and oyster juice. “Eleven happy couples to my name. Hundreds of matches sealed to my mother and grandma’s names. Yes. We surely grow the best mussels for love. Yes.” Her voice grew whispery as though mentioning her family called up the loneliness he imagined she must feel most of the time. She stared at the empty oyster bowl, her vulnerability seizing his heart.
“You know a lot about it.”
She made a funny noise and met his gaze again. “About what?”
“Love. Like you said.”
Her cheeks flamed red and his stomach fluttered as she looked him up and down before walking toward the table to retrieve a large crock.
“Not me,” she said. “I just provide the lure. For other people. Not for me.”
When the stew was fully cooked she had Landon pour it into the crock and lidded it.
“Shouldn’t we try it?” A mischievous smile came to him.
She squinted at him. “It’s for them.”
“Yes, but. Let me try it just in case.”
She giggled. “Uh, no.” He enjoyed her laugh, that he caught her off guard. “Let’s get this to the springhouse to keep until I deliver it.”
He picked it up and as they exited the cottage, rumbling thunder was followed by a lightning bolt over the river. They jumped. “Take that to the springhouse. I’ll bring the horses in.” She took off in the direction of the paddock.
“No. I’ll go. You get into the cottage. Lightning’s too close.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Meet you back there.”
He ran as fast as possible without spilling the stew. The springhouse was laden with foods. Landon followed what she’d told him about where to put the crock so it was covered up to the lip of the lid like a child tucked into bed during a winter storm. The thunder grew sharper and closer.
Instead of going back to the cottage, he joined Tilly at the barn where they settled and brushed the horses. Finally, they fed them and dashed back to the cottage, great vats of rain bursting over their heads.
Chapter 13
Tilly
Tilly and Landon entered the cottage sopping wet, falling into each other laughing as the storm crashed outside. The electricity the storm generated made Tilly feel as though she ought to find a way to add some of that to the stew. Her skin tingled as she and Landon took turns mopping each other’s backs. Desire fluttered in her belly, quivers spiraling through her. She wanted a reason to keep touching him, to feel the peaks and valleys of his musculature under her fingertips. When they’d removed as much clothing as was possible, they looked at one another, suddenly without words.
Tilly went into the bedroom, the storm and night falling, causing shadows to elongate and darken the room. A crash of thunder shook the large window above the bed. Lightning lit the space like it was day. The atmospheric pressure clamped down, the grasp of power from the thunder, lightning and rain raised the hair on her arms. Landon would never find his way home in these conditions.
She hung the wet garments on a line and changed into sleeping clothes that would keep her modestly covered and warm with the falling temperatures. She grabbed another sheet from the closet so Landon could dry off as much as possible. She stopped before closing the door again. It was well stocked with her father’s clean clothes. He had been a big man like Landon. But her father’s clothing was worn, rustic, not fine like what Landon wore, not worthy for...
No. She stopped herself from thinking it. Her father’s things were every bit as good as this man Landon’s—perfect for the purpose they had served. She inhaled her father’s scent. Was it even still there after two years? It was strange, but she wanted to share these things with Landon, even if for just one short night. She removed a set of drawers and sleeping clothes, closed the door and leaned against it. Her father would be proud to lend his clothing to someone in need. And in that moment, Landon, big bug from far, far away, was as needy as he could be.
As Landon changed into dry clothes in the bedroom, the storm shook the cottage like it were a toy in a giant’s hand. Tilly lit lanterns and prepared a meal of tomatoes, cheese, and the last of the bread she’d baked that week. Before they ate, Landon thanked her profusely for having the foresight to keep her father’s sturdy clothing for just this sort of emergency, not understanding that she really saved the clothes to keep her father close, his presence, his essence near.
“Let’s rewrap that hand.”
She nodded.
Landon led her to the table in the kitchen area. He spread out his ointments on the table and tore a large linen in sections for fresh bandages.
Rain slashed and ripped at the home as he unwrapped and washed her hand, staring at it, curious, not disgusted or repulsed like some strangers when they noticed it.
Tilly explained to him that her family had been farming their land and harvesting mussels in the cove for generations.
Landon patted her hand dry, gentle around the cut. He caressed the scars that mapped paths across her skin, that she said didn’t hurt though she knew it looked like they did. He pressed her hand onto the table, unscrewed the lid to the jar of neem and cocked his head at her. “Why on earth would they have you shucking shells as a child? Couldn’t they see what was happening to your hand?”
Tilly stared at Landon for a moment. He didn’t understand at all. But instead of arrogance etched into his features, he bore a kindness, an inquisitiveness that made her want to explain instead of run. “That water out there, this land has given and given and given to my family for nearly one hundred years.”
He dabbed a corner of a clean linen into the neem.
“It’s not like you think. Our work...” She didn’t know how to put it into words but she tried anyway. “This land and the water have given my family everything we need to eat, to heal. It’s what kept me alive when my parents died. I don’t know how I’d survive if I was just working in some hotel or restaurant. This land, working it makes me feel as though my parents are still alive, still near. And any scars from that are just part of what happens when you love something like I do. With love comes some pain. I guess.”
“Like cayenne in mussel stew.”
She cocked her head. Maybe he was starting to see.
“Looks like a lot of work for you, though. Being alone.”
She shrugged and he dabbed the neem on her cuts. “I barely have to do anything to get a full crop of corn, lettuce, cucumbers, you name it. We’ve got apple trees and pear trees and one little peach tree that gives us fruit just about every other year... which I figure is fine since it’s not supposed to live too far north and west of Georgia anyways.”
She’d never talked so much to someone she didn’t know as she was in this moment.
He screwed the lid back onto the jar and began to wrap bandages around her hand again, tucking the end in to secure it. “And the cove?”
Another crash of thunder and jolt of lightning shook the cabin. They both jumped, knocking into each other. Tilly looked into his eyes and felt as though part of her soul had unspooled and threaded into his, as though they’d been struck by lightning, the force of it soldering them together.
Landon breathed heavy and put his hand on the nape of her neck, sending thrills up and down her skin. Without giving herself permission, Tilly slid closer and he leaned in, his lips soft against hers.
Another thunder clap made the house shudder. “I’m sorry,” they both said and moved apart.
The silence sizzled between them and Tilly was aware of every inch of her body.
“And the cove?” Landon whispered, moving closer again.
She folded the remaining bandage pieces for later. “It gives us,” she cleared her throat and sighed, “me, it gives me everything else, everything I need to flourish, well beyond surviving. The cove is everything. And this hand.” She looked down at the fingers which extended out of the bandaging. “The way it looks doesn’t matter as long as I can tend my shells and make my beautiful boxes and knives and mirrors, and jewelry for people who delight in them like nothing else. I get commissions for gifts for people to give loved ones, but the orders are a gift to me. I couldn’t live without them.”
His breath hiccupped and as he looked deeply into her eyes she felt as though perhaps he understood.
Another crash of thunder made the home quake. Another clap came on its heels, making the window over the bed shake. They turned toward it just as the glass shattered over the bed.
Tilly and Landon raced to the bedroom, wind whipping, rain dousing them. They dragged the iron bed away from the opening.
“We need something to cover the hole,” he said.
Tilly went through all the places in the home where she stowed linens, grabbing up everything she could find. But as she entered the bedroom with her arms full, she stopped. The linens would work but only until they were soaked. Landon had already pulled three bookcases away from the lashing rain. “Thank you for moving those.”
He dragged the last bookcase away from the whipping rain.
They’d need more than the armload of linens. “There’s canvas in the shed near the shoreline,” she remembered. “It’ll keep rain out better than anything.”
Landon jogged to the door and opened it, hesitating as a lightning bolt struck the tip of the land that separated the cove from the river.
Lightning and thunder never bothered Tilly. “I’ll go,” she said. “I get caught in at least a storm a week all summer.”
He pulled her back. “No. Keep your hand dry.”
He started to step out.
Tilly’s belly seized at the sight of him heading into the storm and she yanked him back. As she started to slam the door another lightning bolt struck the oak tree between the house and the cove, splitting it right down its center.
He hopped back. They slammed the door and both put their backs against it, chests heaving. Their hands found each other, his large palm gobbling hers up.
Landon’s eyes widened. “You saved me.”
“That’s dramatic.”
“True though.”
She looked away. “Let’s put the linens over the hole and hope they at least keep the rain from pooling in the bedroom.”
They did that and then carefully folded the quilt around the broken window glass, shaking the shards into a crock near the front door.
“Careful we don’t cut the fabric. My momma made it when she married my dad.”
And so as the storm raged and the temperatures dropped outside, they dragged the down mattress in front of the fire. They told each other childhood stories, how Landon’s was full of great wealth and luxury that was just out of his adult grasp, taunting him, driving him, oppressing him. Yet.
“I want it for myself,” he said. “I know I can prove to my parents that I’m just as good as them, as my brothers. Sometimes I see it in their eyes that they wonder if I was dropped out of some raven’s claw on my birth day and somehow my mother’s real baby was switched out unbeknownst to them. I just can’t quite seem to be what they want me to.”
