Tactful, thought the doctor.
Waste of time, thought their sister.
It might be that both were correct in their estimation.
Chapter Ten
“TISH,” HE SAID.
“Tish?”
“Ahuh. Just wonderin’ if anyone had ever called you that, ’steada Letty.”
Sisters and guests had consumed the noon meal (Reese with unabashed gusto; Letitia, watching curiously, supposed she’d better learn how to cook) amid a pleasant air of conversation and congeniality. And, since the doctor and Hannah were seated side by side, a good deal of teasing and a small bit of sniping.
Afterward, the girls had cleaned up in the kitchen (and Hannah, grudgingly but voluntarily, slapped several big chunks of ham between two fat slices of sourdough bread to send along with the doctor). Meanwhile, Reese and Gabriel wandered outside into the sweet October sunshine to smoke a couple of cheroots and talk about whatever it is that men talk about when their womenfolk aren’t around.
Some time had passed before Gabe decided he ought to return to the office, just in case some desperately ill patient came crawling in to seek his services. Then Molly, hat firmly on head and impish grin firmly in place, betook herself off to jail. It was time, she told her sisters, as a farewell, that the man she loved paid her some attention. After all, she would soon be his wife, and she intended not to be a neglected one! Third to leave was Hannah, who had decided her boarding room bedroom would serve as retreat to read and take a nice long nap.
That left Reese and Letty to their own devices. Yes, Letty assured everyone, they would lock up the house again. No, they two would not linger too long here, alone. Yes, certainly, she understood about decorum, and all that. For Heaven’s sake, did they believe she was a child?
“Tish,” she repeated again, now, tasting the word.
The back yard, on this perfect autumn afternoon, with its towering trees and leaves tinged with a slight change of color and inviting twig furniture, had called them back. The weather was too gorgeous to stay confined indoors, and enough privacy from any neighbors’ view was guaranteed to be provided by shrubs and bushes galore.
After seating Letitia on the bench, Reese had pulled up a chair opposite and leaned forward into their tête-à-tête, knees spread apart and forearms braced on thighs. He had removed his Stetson once again, so that a sweet soft breeze ruffled his hair and lifted the open collar of his shirt. Turning his head a bit, he sniffed appreciatively like a hunting dog following the quarry’s scent.
A captivated Letty could only sit still, simply drinking him in. She wondered how good fortune had so smiled upon her—guided her, in fact—that she had chosen this particular man, of the dozen or so who had responded to her newspaper advertisement. She wondered if Molly had felt the same.
“Yeah,” said Reese into the quiet, smiling as if he understood her mood and the tenor of her thoughts. “I kinda like Tish. If you do.”
A cardinal suddenly burst out into song almost directly overhead, flashed its brilliant red plumage from one branch to another, then flew off into the misty blue sky. Looking for seeds, no doubt. Or warning off another male from his territory. Several bumblebees, already drunk on nectar, buzzed their way from flower to flower collecting pollen and encouraging the development of
more. In the distance, one of Abel Norton’s livery pups set up a sudden barking, briefly subsided, barked again, stopped.
Letitia felt unexpectedly breathless. And slightly nervous. And fluttery, like someone being propelled slowly and carefully across the planks of some swinging bridge, high above a gorge.
“Yes, Reese. I do like it.”
For a few minutes they basked in the silence around them. No words, no half-parsed sentences, only eloquent shared glances that spoke more than any utterance ever could. Taking measure from substance, and finding satisfaction.
He reached out to clasp her hand, twining her slender fingers loosely through his. “Me, too. You wanna discuss somethin’ serious?”
In her imagination, that pesky swinging bridge began to rock slightly, moving back and forth just enough to jar the nerves. “Serious. You mean sad? Distressing? Disturbing?”
His grin lit up every line of his face, lightening the exp
ression of his eyes, sending the white scar into oblivion. “Kinda depends on how you feel about it.”
“Well, Reese, I won’t know until you tell me.”
Still keeping hold, he stood and breached their few inches of decorous separation to seat himself on the bench beside her. “Thought you might like to talk about the future.”
He was close. So close. Enough that she could feel the warmth and solidity of his thigh pressed against hers, and that alone initiated a slight trembling. But wariness crept in, to settle over her like a chill cloak of uncertainty. “All right...”
His gaze swept down to their linked hands, then up to zero in on her face, to take in every detail of buttermilk complexion and quartz-blue eyes as if he were committing her features to memory.
“I was mighty taken with your ad,” he told her softly, harking back over the past few months. “You wrote just enough to get me interested.”