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“What about me?” Molly wailed. “When do I get to go to school?”
“As soon as you’re big enough, honey.”
“But I’m big now!”
“Molly, you’re still too young to walk three miles to town and then three miles back home, and you’re too little to ride a horse.”
Her face scrunched up. “When will I be big enough?”
Cord stood up suddenly. “How ’bout I measure you, see how tall you are? We can make a mark on the back door frame.” He sent Eleanor an inquiring look, and she nodded.
“Then later I’ll measure you again, and you can see how much you’ve grown. How about it?”
Molly’s eyes sparkled. “Can we do it right now?”
“Sure.” He caught Eleanor’s eye. “You got a tape measure handy?”
“It’s upstairs in my bedroom. But—”
“I’ll get it,” Cord said. Eleanor had looked peaked all afternoon and during supper she’d seemed short of breath. “Where is it, exactly?”
“It’s in my top dresser drawer. Molly can show you, but she’s too short to reach it.”
Cord followed the girl as she scampered up the stairs. He’d been in Eleanor’s bedroom only once, the day she’d almost fainted and he’d carried her upstairs.
Molly banged the door open and streaked toward the walnut chest standing against the far wall. “Up there.” She pointed to the top drawer.
Something about being here made him nervous. Too private, maybe? Too...female?
Carefully he pulled the drawer open. Her possessions were all neatly arranged, lacy handkerchiefs, a red knit hat and two blue silky-looking scarves. No jewelry, he noted. He wanted in the worst way to open the second drawer. Maybe he’d find some of her smallclothes, drawers or chemises, or a sheer nightgown. Nah. Eleanor wouldn’t wear a sheer nightgown.
Or would she?
Concentrate on the tape measure, man.
He gingerly laid one finger on the tumble of scarves and pushed one aside, looking for the tape. But what he uncovered instead was a framed daguerreotype. A man and a woman, apparently on their wedding day. A long veil fell below her slim shoulders. She was not smiling.
His gut clenched. What made a woman not smile on her wedding day? He wished he hadn’t seen it.
Molly danced at his side. “Didja find it?”
He pushed the photograph to one side and there underneath it lay a neatly coiled measuring tape. “Got it.” Reluctantly he pushed the drawer shut.
Molly darted out the door and down the stairs. “Measure me! Measure me!”
While Eleanor and Danny washed up the supper dishes, Cord lined Molly up against the door frame and made a pencil mark for her height. “You’re thirty-two inches tall,” he announced.
“Now do me,” Danny insisted. He dried his hands on the dish towel, marched to the back door and stood at attention. Cord dutifully marked his height and turned to Eleanor.
“How tall are you, Miz Malloy?”
“Why, I have no idea.”
“Shall I measure you?”
“Oh, I don’t think—”
“Aw, come on, Ma, do it!” Danny ordered.
Obediently Eleanor moved to the back door and straightened her spine against the frame. She sent him a self-conscious look and closed her eyes.
Closed her eyes? Why in hell would she close her eyes?
He snapped the length of measuring tape in his two hands, moved toward her and stopped. He couldn’t lay the tape against Eleanor’s body. He didn’t trust his hands anywhere near her. They were already shaking and he wasn’t anywhere close to her.
“You’d better hurry up, Cord,” she said. “You and Molly have to dry the dishes.”
He swallowed. “Right. Open your eyes and turn around, Eleanor. Face the door and put your nose right up against the wood.”
She obeyed, and he ran the tape from the back of her work boot, over the curve of her hip and along her upper spine to the top of her head. “Okay, now step away.”
She ducked under his hand and moved back a step while he made a pencil mark on the door frame. Next to it he inscribed her initials. E.M.
“Now you!” Danny insisted.
Before he could refuse, Eleanor snatched the tape measure out of his hand. “Stand up against the door,” she ordered.
“Front or back?” he asked. Wait a minute. The thought of her touching him anywhere near his groin was unnerving. He turned toward the door and put his back to her.
He felt her touch his ankle, felt the tape slide along the back of his jeans and then over his butt. He stopped breathing.
Then her hand skimmed up his spine to his neck, and he couldn’t help the shiver that shook him.
Suddenly she stopped. “The tape measure’s not long enough,” she announced.
Cord said a silent prayer of thanks. Her every touch was arousing. Actually, he didn’t dare turn around just yet because his groin was engorged and...well...active.
“How tall is Cord?” Molly asked.
“Over six feet,” Eleanor said.
“Golly,” Danny breathed. “Do you think I’ll be that tall when I’m all growed up?”
Eleanor wound the tape into a tight coil and slipped it into her apron pocket. “I don’t think so, Danny. Your father was...” She stopped abruptly. “Shorter than Cord,” she continued. “So chances are you will be—”
“Tall enough,” Cord interrupted. “Tall enough to be a really good rider.”
The boy’s gray-blue eyes widened. “Really honest?”
“Yeah, really honest.” He caught Eleanor’s gaze. She was shaking her head no.
“I don’t want Danny riding a horse yet. There’s been no one to teach him, and besides, he’s too young.”
Cord stepped away from the doorway and surreptitiously adjusted his jeans. “He’s not too young, Eleanor. I’ve been riding since I was five years old.”
She bit her lip. “I still don’t think—”
“Please, Ma?” Danny yelped. “I’ll do all the dishes every night for a month, I promise.”
Cord laid his hand on the boy’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. Then he turned to Molly.
“Come on, Molly. I guess it’s up to us to dry the supper dishes.”
Chapter Six (#ub3a4fbdf-f875-5b82-a0cf-8c3bd12de7ef)
“You ever think you’d like to eat pie for breakfast?” Cord asked the next morning.
“Yes!” Molly and Daniel shouted in unison.
“No,” Eleanor said decisively.
Cord shrugged and watched her crack eggs into the skillet. “Apple pie is not a proper breakfast for growing children,” she pronounced in a no-nonsense tone.
“Aw, Ma,” Danny moaned. “I’m sick of eggs.”
“Eggs,” their mother said with an edge in her voice, “are what civilized people eat for breakfast.”
Both children dawdled through the meal of fried eggs and bacon, and suddenly Cord realized why they were eating so slowly. It was Monday, a school day for Danny.
An hour later the grumbling boy hoisted his satchel over his shoulder and plodded out the front door. Molly moped around the yard petting the chickens until her brother trudged back through the gate late that afternoon.
“Danny, you know maybe you could ride my bay mare to school,” Cord remarked casually. “I could teach you to ride.”
“Nah. Ma won’t let me. You heard her. She says a horse is dangerous. Besides, you said it was too much horse for me.”
“It is dangerous if you don’t know how to handle a horse. You ever been on a horse?”
Danny shook his head.
“How long does it take you to walk to school?”
“Most of an hour. It’s over three miles.”
Cord nodded. He’d like to see the boy get to and from school faster, if only because Molly was always underfoot when her brother was gone. An extra hour morning and evening could be well spent if Danny was around to entertain the girl.
After supper that night Cord again raised the subject with Eleanor.
“Absolutely not,” she said shortly. “He’s too young to manage a big animal like that.”
“He’s not too young, Eleanor. I told you I learned to ride when I was younger than Molly.”
“Then your mother was a fool.”
“My mother was dead. My father was the fool, but he taught me to ride anyway. And hunt and read and write. He even taught me to dance a Virginia reel.”
Eleanor’s face changed. “Did he really? How extraordinary!”
“He also taught me how to repair a barn roof, which is what I’m going to do tomorrow. Unless,” he added, “you have something else that needs doing.”
“Does the barn roof really need fixing?”
“It does. The holes are so big, at night I can look up and see the stars. Come winter it’ll leak like a sieve.”
“I take it that you are sleeping up in the loft?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Along with Mama Cat and her kittens.”
“I think Isaiah slept in one of the horse stalls. He wouldn’t climb the ladder up to the loft. He said it made him light-headed.”
Cord chuckled. “Then he never knew about the holes in the roof, did he? Or about Mama Cat?”
“Oh, very well,” she said with a laugh. “Fix the barn roof. I certainly wouldn’t want a wet cat and kittens when the winter rains come.”
She stood up, untied her apron and hung it on the hook by the stove. “Thank you for making those pies, Cord.” She hesitated. “A man who can not only bake a pie and dance a Virginia reel but repair barn roofs is certainly rare in my book.”
Cord thought about her remark all the rest of that day. Rare, huh? He’d been called a lot of things in his life, but “rare” wasn’t one of them. Still, he thought with a smile, a man liked a compliment now and then, didn’t he?
* * *
It was Saturday, Danny’s School Night. All day the boy moped around the yard with such a long face Eleanor wondered if he was sick. Finally she couldn’t stand it any longer and set aside the basket of green peas she was shelling and stood up on the back porch step. “Danny, are you feeling all right?”
“Sure, Ma. I guess so. Got something flutterin’ around in my belly is all.”
Cord looked up from the chicken house, where he was nailing a new roost in place. “Butterflies, huh?”
“Guess so,” the boy muttered.
“You have to give a speech or something? That can make a man plenty nervous.”
Danny perked up at the word man and sent her hired man a pained look. “Yeah. I gotta recite the Bill of Rights from memory and give a speech about it.”
“Hey, just yesterday you wanted to be ‘all growed up’ so your ma would let you ride a horse,” Cord reminded him. “Part of gettin’ there—” he shot Eleanor a look “—is, uh, standing up to those things that are hard.”
“Like giving a speech?” Danny muttered.
“Yeah, like giving a speech.”
Eleanor sat back down on the step and again started shelling peas. Cord made a good deal of sense at times.
