Deep in the Heart of Trouble (14 page)

Beneath an old wooden pavilion, Tony strolled past the tables lining the auctioneer’s dais, each of them bowed with the weight of box suppers. Not a one of them held frippery to match Essie’s outfit. Tony once again surveyed the collection of baskets, ribbons, bunting, bows, and gewgaws. Where in the blazes was her box?

“Quite a selection, isn’t it?” the preacher said, joining him. “Do you see one that takes your fancy?”

“Not just yet, I’m afraid,” Tony answered.

The preacher stuck out his hand, and Tony clasped it.

“Good to see you again,” Wortham said. “What did you think of the service on Sunday?”

“I enjoyed it very much.”

The preacher wasn’t the only one of Essie’s patrons to have arrived at the red-white-and-blue-festooned pavilion. Most of the others, having concluded their group ride, milled about the fairgrounds with other locals in anticipation of the box-supper auction.

“So,” Wortham said, “are you looking for any basket in particular?”

“Matter of fact, I am. What about you? Is your wife’s box somewhere in here?”

Wortham smiled. “I’m afraid hers might be a bit difficult to find seeing as how I haven’t got a wife.”

Tony nodded, remembering Grandpa had mentioned that the time Wortham and Harley came out to the patch. Tony didn’t think he’d ever met a preacher with no wife. Those two things just went together like ham and eggs.

“Which one are you going to bid on, then?” Tony asked.

“Oh, I don’t have a particular one in mind this year. What about you?”

Tony scanned the box suppers. “I was looking for Miss Spreckelmeyer’s.”

“Were you, now?” Wortham lifted his brows. “Well, what do you know about that. Is she aware you want to bid on it?”

“She might have some inkling. How much competition do you think I’ll have?”

A mischievous smile grew on the preacher’s face. “Considering who she’s been sharing her basket with for the past four years, I’d say you have some mighty big competition.”

Tony’s chest tightened.

Chuckling, Wortham slapped him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry.

It’s nobody you need concern yourself with.”

“It’s not the deputy, is it?”

“Goodness, no.” Wortham’s frown made his distaste for the deputy plain, but he disguised it quickly enough.

Tony rubbed his mouth. “Do you know what was going on this afternoon when you interrupted Howard and her?”

“I aim to find out.”

“You interested in Miss Spreckelmeyer?” Tony asked, narrowing his eyes.

The preacher gave him a long look. “I was at one time. But she turned me down.”

She seemed to make a habit of rebuffing suitors, Tony thought. He wondered if Wortham had given up on her yet.

“You bidding on her box supper today, Preacher?”

“No, I’m not.”

Tony released a pent-up breath. He’d never been one to share his thoughts with strangers, even if they were preachers, but he figured Wortham could answer some of the questions rattling around in his head. “So how long have you known her?”

“Essie? A long time.” Wortham smiled. “We’ve been friends for as far back as I can remember.”

“That so?”

“She was a grand playmate. She taught me how to fish, shoot, swim, climb trees, and gig frogs. I was half in love with her before I ever reached adolescence.”

Gig frogs? “So what happened?”

“She turned me down flat. Said I was too much like a little brother. Kinda takes the starch out of a fellow, if you know what I mean.”

Tony smiled. “Well, don’t feel bad. She’s fighting me tooth and nail, as well.”

As soon as he said the words, he regretted them. He hadn’t meant to make light of his feelings toward her, even if he didn’t exactly know what they were.

The preacher picked up on the false note in Tony’s voice. The man’s posture never changed, but his tone turned colder than a well chain in December.

“Just make sure you don’t hurt her, Bryant, or else you’ll answer to me.”

Tony shook his head. “I’d never hurt her, sir.”

For the first time, he sized Wortham up as a man, not a preacher. He was short, but he was no weakling. The way he filled out his jacket was nothing to scoff at. Tony figured he could throw a good punch if he had a mind to.

The crowd had grown in anticipation of the auction, gathering tightly within the pavilion. A group of young ladies clustered together, giggling and trying hard not to see if the fellow of their choosing was lingering nearby. Essie was nowhere in sight.

Wortham took Tony by the shoulders and turned him so he was facing east. “She’s up there. Under that big oak tree.”

A couple hundred yards away on the crest of a green hill, a massive oak tree dwarfed Essie while providing an abundance of shade beneath its outstretched branches.

“And her basket isn’t for sale,” he added. “It’s been off the market for a long time. If’n you want to share it with her, you’ll have to do some mighty slick talking. Good luck.”

Pushing the rim of his hat back, Tony took in the sight. Young boys rolled down the slope, racing to see who could reach bottom first, with no regard for the clumps of yellow wild flowers they crushed along the way. But Essie kept her head down, paying them no attention.

He wove through the crowd, greeting several of the men he worked with. To his surprise, many of the women he’d met at the Velocipede Club last week stopped and introduced him to their husbands. Mrs. Bunert was married to a harness maker. Mrs. Fowler, the blacksmith. Mrs. Garitty, the Opera House president. And Mrs. Whiteselle, the mayor. By the time he made it to Essie’s hill, the auction in the pavilion was in full swing.

The farther up the incline he moved, the better he could see. With her white skirt billowing out around her, she scribbled in a journal of some sort that she’d propped on her lap. Beside her lay her gloves, hat, and box supper. She’d decorated her basket to match the ribbons in her hat and the bows on her skirt.

As he drew closer, he half expected to be overtaken by a rival. He looked around and saw no one, but his imagination still ran rampant. What would he do if a man stepped out from behind the tree and took his place beside Essie, neatly edging Tony out?

A blue-checkered cloth covering her meal had been nudged aside, and she occasionally removed bits and pieces of the basket’s contents, absently nibbling on them. So caught up was she in her writings that she didn’t hear him approach. Didn’t know he was there until his shadow fell across her blanket.

Shading her eyes, she looked up. “Mr. Bryant!” She slammed her journal shut. “I didn’t expect … I thought you were …” She took a deep breath. “How do you do?”

He removed his hat. “How do
you
do?”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

“May I?” he asked, indicating the blanket.

“Well, um, actually, I was, um, saving it, sort of.”

“Saving it?” He looked around. “For whom?”

She placed her pencil atop her journal. “For the person I usually share my box supper with.”

Disappointment gripped him. “And who would that be?”

“Christ.”

He blinked. “Christ? You mean,
Jesus
Christ?”

“The very same.”

“You share your box supper with Jesus Christ?”

“Yes. I do.”

Relief poured through him. No suitor would intercept him, after all. He knelt on the blanket, then settled down beside her.

“As it happens,” he said, “the Lord and I are very close. I’m sure He wouldn’t mind if I were to join the two of you.”

“I’m sure He wouldn’t.”

He placed his hat next to hers.

“I, on the other hand, mind very much.”

He froze.

“I cherish this time I spend with Him. The nice thing about all this is that if you would like to take your meal with Him, He can be in two places at once.”

He could not believe he was having this conversation. “Essie, it’s you I want to have supper with.”

“I’m sorry. Perhaps if you hurry, you can acquire one of the boxes up for auction.”

“I don’t want any of those boxes. I want yours.” He sighed. “Is my company really that repulsive?”

She looked away. “It’s not you personally, Tony.”

“Then what is it?”

“You’re my employee. It would be unseemly.”

Couples began to trickle out from the pavilion as suppers were auctioned off. Mothers put their youngsters down on blankets for naps. A group of older men sharing stories and a liquor jug clustered together on the edges of the fairgrounds. Up on the hill, it all seemed so far away.

Rubbing the back of his neck, he glanced at her lap. “What were you writing?”

She kept the pages of her journal firmly closed within her grip. “Nothing.”

“Something, surely?”

“Nothing that need concern you.”

His stomach growled. He glanced at her supper. “You know, I was really looking forward to today because I haven’t had anything to eat since I arrived other than the fare Mr. Castle serves up in his drugstore.”

Her brow crinkled for the briefest of moments.

He picked up his hat and started to rise.

“Mr. Castle’s meals aren’t so bad,” she said.

“Not if you like to eat the same thing over and over every three days.”

“There are other restaurants in town.”

“Not that a roustabout can afford.”

After a slight hesitation, she moistened her lips, then gently tugged the covering off her basket. Fried chicken, green corn patties, cheese wafers, potato croquettes, hard-boiled eggs, two fluffy biscuits, and a broken-off fig tart. His mouth watered.

“Somebody’s sampled the dessert already,” he said, making no effort to disguise the teasing in his voice. “Was that you or the Lord?”

She studied him for a moment, then moved the basket between them. “Just remember, Eli’s sons both dropped dead when they ate food prepared for God.”

He smiled and settled back down on the blanket. “That was a consecrated offering. And made before Christ came to fulfill the law. Besides, I’ve already sent up a quick prayer asking if He’d mind.”

She gave a slight smile. “And what did He say?”

“To help myself.”

She huffed, but he could see her heart wasn’t in the resistance. He peeled a bite off a chicken breast with his teeth, the crispy crust a perfect foil for the tender meat.

Back in the pavilion, a heated competition had commenced, the shouting so loud it nearly drowned out the auctioneer’s voice. At the climax of the proceedings, everyone burst into applause.

Tony ate another piece of chicken, plus a sampling of corn, cheese, and potatoes before Essie finally joined in.

“Harley tells me Brianna is doing better,” he said. “Have you seen her?”

“Yes. And every day the swelling goes down a little bit more. Today will be hard on her, though. Her father wouldn’t let her come to the festivities.”

“That’s what Harley told me,” he said. “But he and I came up with a scheme to cheer her up.”

“What scheme?” she asked.

“Harley had his mother make up a box supper for him. He’s going to take it over to Brianna’s and pretend like it’s hers, then ‘buy’ it from an imaginary auctioneer.” He scanned the park. “As a matter of fact, I haven’t seen him in a while, so it wouldn’t surprise me if that’s where he is now.”

Essie’s lips parted, her eyes softening. “I know Harley didn’t think of that. Was it your idea?”

He shrugged. “It was the only thing I could come up with.”

“It was wonderfully sweet.”

He chuckled. “It oughta earn Harley a star or two.” He reached for the half-eaten fig tart.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Having my half of dessert.”

“That’s not your half. That’s my half.”

He removed the partially eaten confection. “There were at least two portions of everything but the fig tart. So either you’ve eaten one and a half tarts, or you forgot to provide Christ with dessert.”

“I made Him one.”

“Then where is it?”

She didn’t answer.

He wagged his finger at her. “You ate it already, didn’t you? You ate the Lord’s dessert and half of your own, and now you want the rest of mine?”

She eyed the tart longingly. “They’re my favorite. And I didn’t know you were coming.”

“All right, then,” he said, winking. “What will you give me for it?”

Her back went ramrod straight. “I’ll not play those games with you, Mr. Bryant.”

He started to laugh, but her stern, unwavering glare said she was serious.

“You may take the fig tart and go.” Her voice was sharp, clipped.

“Whoa, there, girl. I was only kidding.” He placed the tart back in the basket, then motioned for her to take it, but she remained stubbornly still.

“I was just teasing, Essie. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Didn’t you?” She held up her hand, cutting off his denial. “I know exactly how men like you work. A charming word. A gallant gesture. Then you cast out some harmless bait—only it isn’t harmless once it is taken. But by then it is too late. The damage is done.”

She wadded up the checkered cloth and tossed it into her basket, along with her journal and pencil.

Tony sat still, stunned by the force behind her words, by the anger that surged up like a newly tapped well. And like a gusher, it had drenched everything around it, including him.

He placed a hand on her gloves before she could reach for them. “I’m sorry. I meant no offense. I have no idea what you thought I intended, but it wasn’t dishonorable. You have my word.”

“And just how do I know if your word is any good?”

He sucked in his breath. “Now, wait just a minute. What’s that supposed to mean? You think I’d lie?”

She plucked up her gloves.

“Don’t leave,” he said, standing. “I’ll be on my way. I never intended to chase you from the celebration. I know you’ve worked really hard today with your group ride and all. And I want you to enjoy yourself. Please.”

She stilled, her hand on the basket handle, never once meeting his gaze.

“Thank you for the meal, Essie. It was the best I’ve had in a long while. You have a nice evening, now.”

Placing his hat on his head, he headed down the hill without a single backward glance.