Hank knew Reva wasn’t his type but in the last few days, since meeting Amanda, he wasn’t sure what his “type” of woman was. No doubt he was fascinated by a prude like Amanda because she was the only woman he saw daily. It was as if they had been shipwrecked on an island alone. After a while, any woman would start to look good. Maybe if he went to a dance and saw other women, he wouldn’t be watching the self-righteous, skinny little Amanda so much.
“Could I pick you up?” he asked at last.
Reva grinned broadly and pushed her hair back. “I’ll meet you there. Eight o’clock?”
“Great,” he said. “I better be getting back. The Cauldens may lock the door.”
She almost said, you can stay with me, but she didn’t. He drove her to the corner of Fourth and Front streets and let her off. She wasn’t going to let him see where she lived. She watched him drive away toward the Cauldens’ big, dark ranch and she knew that once again Amanda had something she wanted. Reva had often pondered and cursed the accident of birth that had given one person everything and her nothing. Amanda lived a life of ease, no worries, no cares, no drunken father threatening her every day, no one telling her what to do or how to do it, while Reva’s life was the opposite. Amanda had always had everything good and Reva was handed all that was bad.
Reva started walking toward the railroad tracks. But maybe, this time, Reva could win. She began planning how she could scrape together enough money from her cashier job to buy a new dress for Saturday night. Wouldn’t everyone be surprised to see her with someone like him?
Chapter Six
Amanda didn’t exactly sneak out of the house but she certainly didn’t make any noise either. She took her notebook with her and her fountain pen, but she didn’t take a light. She hoped the moonlight would be enough; besides, she wanted to study the constellations and she could do that better in the darkness.
It had been an odd evening, as every minute had been since Dr. Montgomery had arrived. After reciting that…that poem he had left the house and she’d heard him drive away in his pretty little automobile. For a while afterward she had not heard a word Taylor had said. She kept remembering the way Dr. Montgomery had looked at her while saying those words, words she’d never thought could be put together in such a way.
She wished he didn’t dislike her so much and that perhaps he would teach her poetry. She felt a pang of disloyalty to Taylor for even considering another teacher but, after all, the goal was for her to learn, wasn’t it? And when she had learned enough, Taylor would marry her and they’d live happily ever after here on the ranch.
Once downstairs, she went to the summerhouse where she and Dr. Montgomery had sat while he ate his plateful of food. Amanda thought it best not to
think of food because her stomach grumbled from the missed dinner—missed because Dr. Montgomery refused to follow the schedule.
She leaned back against the post and gazed up at the stars. In spite of the fact that she hadn’t been able to sleep for several nights in a row, she wasn’t sleepy tonight. Something about the heavy, hot night air, the fragrance of flowers and the clearness of the sky made her feel very odd.
While she was stargazing, the quiet, deep rumble of a car came down the driveway and Amanda immediately tried to draw herself up as small as possible so Dr. Montgomery wouldn’t see her. She held her breath as she heard the engine stop then the sound of footsteps crunching on the gravel. She’d wait until he was in the house, then she’d go in. She didn’t want to meet him on the stairs and be subjected to more of his caustic remarks.
As she waited and listened, to her disbelief, he seemed to be not moving toward the house but toward her. She didn’t dare move.
“I thought I saw someone,” he said while still several feet from her.
Amanda let out her breath with a sigh. Caught! she thought. “Good evening, Dr. Montgomery,” she murmured.
Hank walked into the summerhouse and sat down across from her, as far away as he could get. He’d seen just a corner of her white dress reflected in his headlamps. Ordinarily he wouldn’t have noticed, but it was as if he had a second sense about Amanda. Go to bed, he told himself. You’ve had too many beers and you’re feeling too good from the run in the car and you shouldn’t be here with her. But his mind didn’t tell his body to move, so he continued sitting there. “I met a friend of yours tonight.”
Amanda couldn’t imagine who would describe herself as a friend; it had been years since she’d seen anyone but Taylor and her family. “Oh?” she asked. She needed to get upstairs. Taylor would not like for her to be here. This wasn’t on the schedule; in fact, she wasn’t even studying constellations right now.
“Reva Eiler,” he said.
For a moment Amanda didn’t place the name, then slowly she began to remember her fights with Reva. Was that Amanda the same person she was today? Thank heaven Taylor had saved her from what she was.
“Don’t remember her?” Dr. Montgomery asked. “She remembered you, black eye and all.”
In spite of herself, Amanda smiled. “Yes, I remember her. I felt sorry for her, but she stopped that. She always—”
“What?” he coaxed.
“Always seemed to want what I had. If I wore a blue dress with little hearts on it, two days later she’d show up with a blue dress with hearts on it. Once Mother put a big pink-and-white-striped ribbon in my hair and the next day Reva wore a ribbon just like it. I…” She trailed off.
“You what?”
“I threw my ribbon in the river.”
He smiled at her in the darkness. “I’m taking Reva to a dance on Saturday,” he blurted before he thought.
“Good,” Amanda said. “Reva has had too little joy in her life.”
“Unlike you,” he couldn’t resist saying. She was so damned pretty in the moonlight, looking a bit like a fairy maiden, somehow ethereal, with her white dress and her pale oval of a face.