Someone Like You (7 page)

The soft, muffled whinny of a horse drew his attention, and he watched as Susannah came riding across the pasture on Rosebud’s gleaming sorrel back. She was riding astride, with no saddle, her long, slender legs gleaming white in the sunlight where her dress had blown back. Her hair hugged her head, but curled about her face. Reed figured she had been down to the creek to swim and wash her hair, especially when she dismounted and carried a small bundle into the house.

Long after she had disappeared inside, he kept seeing those long, slim legs—something he had no business thinking about. He grabbed the pitchfork from its resting place against the wall and returned to his haying. There was no room for a woman in his life. Hard work would drive that need away.

He had not been working overly long when he thought he heard someone call his name. He paused and listened.

“Mr. Garrett, are you in here?”

It was Violette. “Up in the loft,” he called, “storing hay.”

“Come on down,” she said. “I’ve brought you a big glass of lemonade.”

“Be right there,” Reed said.

She inhaled deeply and her eyes seemed to brighten. “Ah, I remember the times we used to play in the loft when we were children. What a delight that was. I don’t think there is anything that smells better than hay when it’s just come in from the field…or anything that makes me recall more pleasant memories.” She allowed her gaze to fall upon the ladder that went up the wall to the loft for just a moment before moving over to him. “How I wish these old legs of mine could carry me up the rungs of that ladder just one more time,” she said, then paused, reflective. “You know, it isn’t so much the things that happen to you when you grow old that I mind, but the things that you can no longer do.”

He was moved by the depth he saw in this woman, the understanding, the wisdom. She reminded him a great deal of his own mother, and the pain of their separation, the knowledge that he could never go home again was as hurtful as it had been the day he first left Boston. He had to remind himself that the past had no place in his life now.

“I have a feeling you’ve stored up a lot of memories, just like I’m storing that hay,” Reed said, not knowing what possessed him to make such a remark.

“Yes,” she said, “it is sweet to remember. You know, looking back now, it seems as though all my recollections are set to music, even those that were hard to bear. At this point in my life, memories are my fondest possession.”

“Life has been good to you.”

“Oh yes, I’ve had a good time of it, and few regrets. How fortunate I am to have the memories, to be able to live the good times twice.”

From somewhere outside the barn came the sound of Susannah’s voice. She was calling Miss Lavender with a musical lilt to the sweet promise of tasty slops.

In response, Miss Lavender went into an oinking frenzy.

Susannah’s laughter was seductive as hell. It made him want to go to her, to see if the promise in her laugh was, in fact, reality.

He stared toward the open door, envisioning how she must look at this moment. He wondered during their first meeting if she ever laughed; now he’d learned she did, but would she do so in his presence? Would he see her eyes light up at the sight of him? What good times would Susannah remember when she was Violette’s age?

Violette broke into his trance of preoccupation with Susannah. “You are wondering about her memories?”

“Perceptive, aren’t you?”

“It’s an old woman’s advantage. Tell me, what were you thinking of in regard to my niece?”

“As you guessed, I was thinking about her memories—or lack of them, as it would appear. Although I’ve only been here a short while, she doesn’t seem to have much of a life, aside from this farm and the two of you.”

An expression of deep and profound sadness crept over Violette’s face, but it lingered for only a moment until she was able to push it away. “I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! I had you pegged right. I knew you were a sensitive man the moment I laid eyes on you.”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re not the first man to notice my niece by any means, but you are the first to see past the external beauty. I think you are more attracted to what’s inside that girl. Most men look at her and see a pretty ball to play with. You see a ball of yarn that must be untangled. Something similar about you…like calling to like mayhap.”

“Pain identifies pain. Suffering begets suffering. Suffice it to say, it is something I have a grasp of.”

“You and Susannah have much in common, I suspect. You have the touch of the healer in you, young man. It’s a shame you weren’t a doctor.” She suddenly looked down at her watch pinned to her bosom. “Goodness me! It’s almost four o’clock and I’ve got vegetables to gather. I have enjoyed our visit, Mr. Garrett.”

“Please, call me Reed.”

“If you call me Violette.”

“Very well.”

“Good. Perhaps, when you have been here longer, we can talk more of these things.”

“Perhaps,” he said, “but right now, I’d better get this work done.” He picked up the pitchfork and turned toward the ladder.

She watched him go. “Work is a great calmative, is it not? An opiate for the mind, a healer of the body.”

“It is also a way to escape.”

“And it consumes you.”

“Always.”

Violette turned and left the barn, saying softly, “I think you are a man who had much to leave behind.”

From the ladder Reed looked toward the door, but there was no trace of Violette in the doorway, nothing at all of her, save the resonance of her words.

“How wise you are, old woman. How wise and how right,” he said. Then he lost himself in his chores, easing for a time the burden of memories.

Chapter Five

Reed knew that if Susannah had suspected he was down at the creek fishing, she wouldn’t have come for a swim. But she didn’t know, and by the time she discovered it, she had already stumbled on him sitting quietly on the bank, cork bobbing in the water, his thoughts a thousand miles off.

He had been sitting there for at least an hour, listening to the sound of insects, the occasional bleat of a sheep or the bawl of a calf. It was a tranquil spring afternoon, hotter than it had been during the past few days. He heard a splash and looked toward a thick stand of weeds that grew along the creek. A green frog cut a V in the water, disturbing its glassy surface as it swam toward the other side. A few seed-pods left over from last fall floated out of the weeds.

Susannah suddenly rounded the bend in the path and saw him. She was surprised, jerked to a halt, and exclaimed, “Oh my goodness! It’s you!”

Reed could tell that her heart was galloping. Why was she so uncomfortable around him? He could never remember any other woman being so uneasy in his presence.

His gaze dropped to the bundle she held clutched tightly against her chest. “Going swimming?”

“No…I mean, I’m not…that is—” She stopped and took a breath. “I was…but I’m not now.”

“You seem to be having some difficulty. Did you come down here to go swimming or not? Which is it?”

“I was, but I’ve changed my mind.”

“You changed your mind because I’m here?”

“Can you think of a better reason?”

He shrugged. “Don’t let me stop you. I’m as harmless as a fly.”

“I can’t believe anyone was ever stupid enough to fall for that.”

He laughed. “Oh, you’d be surprised.”

“I doubt it.”

There was something about the way she said that that made him wonder, something that went beyond mere cynicism. Had she fallen for a similar line herself? Had she been seduced by some cowboy who drifted into her life and then drifted out again?

“Well, now that you’re here, you might as well join me,” he said.

“I didn’t bring a fishing pole. I didn’t know you like to come down here.”

“I’ve only been a couple of times. If you want to fish, I can cut another sycamore sapling for a pole.”

“What are you using for bait?”

“Frogs mostly. I also found a couple of hellgrammites under some rocks I turned over.”

“Have you caught anything?”

“Two sun perch about the size of my hand. I threw them back.”

He got a nibble and yanked the pole. The hook shot out of the water, naked as a needle. “They get my bait every time.”

He put a frog on the hook and swung it out where the creek made a wide turn. The water was deeper there. Maybe the fish would be bigger. He wasn’t certain, since he didn’t know the first thing about fishing.

He watched the frog float on top of the water; then it went below the surface. He felt a tug on the line. It pulled tight. The end of the sycamore sapling bent over into a U. The fish kept on going. It must have been a big one, and Reed was afraid it would snap the sapling in two. He wasn’t about to lose this fish—not in front of Susannah—so he stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“After this fish.” He waded out into the water. “I’m not—” He stepped into a deep hole, swallowed a mouthful of water, and sank. Water rushed over his head and into his nose, but he held on to the pole. He surfaced, took a gulp of air, and found his footing. The line went slack and he thought he’d lost it, but it went tight again and Reed kept just enough pressure on to feel those moments when he needed to pull in and when he needed to give a little slack. He followed that damn fish all over the place, thrashing about in deep water over his head and floundering in the weeds along the creek bank. He was thinking he would never land this fish when the line snagged on a log in the shallows. He saw the fish flip in the weeds.

“Holy moley!” he heard Susannah shout. “It’s a big one. A bass! I don’t remember ever seeing anyone catch a bass in here.”

He took a dive toward the fish, but it flipped just before he caught it. “You still haven’t seen anyone catch one,” he said between pants and gasps.

He saw the fish in the weeds and took another dive. He caught it this time and felt his hands close around cold, smooth flesh. The fish thrashed and he felt the spines of its fins brush against his arm. The fish wiggled free. He dived for it again and came up with his arms full of flapping fish, weeds, gravel, and creek mud. But he had his fish, and he threw it toward the bank before it could get away.

He heard a yelp and then a squeal and looked up in time to see the big white-bellied bass hit Susannah square in the chest. She caught the fish with a loud “Oooof!” then took a few steps back, trying to keep her balance. She still held the fish, but when she looked down and saw it, eye to eye, she made a sound of disgust and dropped it.

He stumbled toward her, fighting against the pull of bottom mud until he was on the bank. He stopped a few feet from Susannah, panting hard, water running from his soaked clothes. The fish was flopping around, bits of grass and sand clinging to it, but it was far from the water now. He was too tuckered out to do much more than stand there, wet and winded as a blown horse, looking at her. She still had a surprised expression on her face, and the front of her dress was all wet. He remembered her going eye to eye with that fish and began to laugh.

Surprised at first, she suddenly started laughing, too. “I wish you could see yourself,” she said in short gasps. “You’re a holy mess. Your hair is plastered to your face in front. In the back it’s sticking up like the feathers in a war bonnet.”

He looked her over. “You’re not so tidy yourself.”

She glanced down at her wet dress and laughed harder. When she got control of herself, she asked, “You didn’t exactly handle that fishing pole like you’d done much fishing.”

“I haven’t.”

“What made you decide to come down here, then?”

Reed shrugged and began dusting the grit and gravel off his soaked clothes, then went to pick up his catch. “It’s Sunday, my day off. There wasn’t much to do, and I found myself thinking about a fish dinner.” He paused a moment, looking at the fish. He wasn’t sure where he should pick it up, so he just reached for the tail. It flipped out of his hand. “Slippery litle devils, aren’t they?”

“Pick it up by the gills.”

Reed didn’t move. He knew what the gills were, but he wasn’t certain how you picked a fish up by them. Susannah must have sensed that, for she walked over to the fish and picked it up by inserting three fingers into its gills. She held the fish aloft. It hung down past her elbow.

“It’s a big one, the biggest I’ve ever seen.”

“I thought you said you’d never seen anybody catch one before.”

“Not in this creek, but I’ve seen them caught out of ponds.”

“Looks like I finally found something us Yankees can excel at.”

She ignored that comment and said, “Here, hold the fish while I take that piece of cord off my bundle of clothes. We can run it through his gills and stake him in the water.”

He took the fish from her, inserting his fingers into the gills just as she had done. “What for?”

“So he won’t die.”

“You want to keep it alive?”

“Of course, but if it were me, I’d throw it back.”

“Is that what you want me to do?”

She shrugged. “It’s your fish.”

“I thought we’d eat it.”

“You can if you like.”

“Then why go to all the trouble of keeping it alive if we’re just going to eat it?”

“So it will stay fresh. Of course, you Yankees may prefer to eat fish that has been dead for several hours.”

“Some Yankees know how to fish. Boston is, after all, a seaport. I just don’t happen to be one of them.”

“Why not?”

“I never went fishing, so I never learned how.”

“You really never fished before?”

“No.”

“Truly?”

“Honest to God.”

“Why didn’t your father take you?”

“He didn’t know how to fish.”

“Why?”

“I guess his father didn’t know how either. My family isn’t the fishing type.”

“What do you mean? I didn’t know you had to be a type to fish.”

“We liked fish, but our cook bought it at the market, then prepared it.”

“You had a cook?”

He thought of the delicious boiled shad dinners, of the cook’s tendency to burn the roe. “We had a cook—and a butler, nine maids, a groom, a driver, three gardeners, plus a few others.”

“Your folks were rich?”

“They were…genteel.”

“They were rich.”

He thought of blue china flowerpots filled with spiky palms standing in front of French windows, of drawing rooms and heavy damask drapes, chintz poufs, velvet-covered tables laden with china, silver, and crystal. “Yes, I suppose you would say so.”

“And you gave all of that up so you could catch your own fish dinner?”

“It would appear that I did.”

“Why?”

He held the fish up. “Are you going to get that string? He looks like he’s about to draw his last gasping breath.”

“Oh, I almost forgot.” She ran toward the bundle she had dropped and quickly removed the length of twine she had tied it with. When she’d finished and returned the fish to the water, she said to Reed, “If you could put a stake into the shallow water there, I will tie this twine around it so the fish won’t get away.”

He did as she asked, then sat down and pulled off his boots. He poured the water out of them and set them aside to dry. “A fish that big will make a lot of chowder.”

“Is that what they eat where you’re from?”

“Yes, it’s a popular dish in Boston. You don’t eat it here?”

“No. We don’t have fish very often, and when we do, it’s always fried.” She wrinkled her nose. “You don’t like the food we cook?”

He paused before answering, delighted by the sprinkling of freckles across her nose that were the same golden color as her eyes. “I like your food, but there are times when I miss some of the things I grew up with. Fish chowder is one of them.”

She looked as though she remembered something from her past, food perhaps. He was dying from curiosity, but he was afraid to ask, afraid he’d scare her away, so he said quickly, “I can make fish chowder. I wrote my mother and she sent me the recipe. It’s the only thing I know how to cook.”

When Susannah said nothing, he turned and picked up his pole, then dug around in his pocket. He pulled out a small frog. “I guess I lost all the others when I went in the water.”

“That one looks dead.”

“It is, but maybe the fish won’t mind.” He baited the hook and cast it into the creek.

“I bet you won’t catch another bass. It will be a perch or an old mud cat, more than likely.”

“It doesn’t matter. Catching is half the fun. Why don’t you come over here and sit down so I can talk to you without getting a crick in my neck, or would you rather stand there like a statue?”

“I…”

“I’m harmless. I just want some companionship, a litle conversation. If you’re uneasy, you can cross over to the older side. That log over there is sturdy enough for you to walk on. I crossed over it myself, not long ago.”

He knew she rarely talked to a man other than to make a few comments about the weather or livestock prices, but he also knew he was different from anyone who had come to Bluebonnet, and he was from Massachusetts, a place she had only heard about. He guessed she might be intrigued, thinking he had seen much of the world. She was a curious person, full of questions.

“I suppose I could…for a little while.”

She crossed over the log and took a place on the other side of the creek, sitting on a tree stump and tucking her skirts about her. He liked the way splashes of sunlight leaked through the foliage to paint her with dapples of lemon light. Nearby a bird on skinny stick-like legs hopped along a branch of a dead tree.

They sat in companionable silence, regarding each other.

A breeze stirred, rustling the green, waxy leaves of a cottonwood tree overhead. The sun struck Susannah full in the face and made her eyes appear as warm and buttery as freshly pulled taffy. Her face and arms were tanned, but Reed knew that without clothes, the rest of her would be milky white. His gaze went back to her eyes. He liked her eyes and their long, soft lashes. He liked the fullness of her mouth, the heart shape of her face, the high cheekbones. Hell, he liked everything he saw.

Susannah broke the spell.

“Tell me about Boston…about your home.”

“Boston’s a busy seaport, built around a harbor, so there are a multitude of ships coming and going, bringing people and goods from everywhere. It is much larger than any of the towns near here, and quite different. In the West things are spread out. In Boston we are a bit more cramped. The streets are crooked and narrow—some of them twist and change guises as they meander along. The houses are mostly brick or frame; the streets are cobbled. There is a lot of America’s history there.”