WILD OATS (3 page)

Cora raised her chin to look him bravely in the eye. He had the look of Amelia Sparrow, she thought. That same yellow blond hair of which Amelia was so proud hung a little too long at Jedwin's nape in neat little curls. His features were well formed, with high cheekbones and a graceful jawline that seemed to accentuate the pink curve of his lips. He was almost too finely attractive, but something about his eyes, his intense and watchful maple brown eyes, saved him from prettiness.

Cora allowed her gaze to stray from his face to the width of his shoulders and the long, solid length of his arms. The hands he clasped loosely together at his knees were large, strong, workingman's hands. The kind of hands that could draw a woman's gaze from a pretty face.

"Romance?" Cora asked hastily and then recalled the game she wished to play. "Surely you know what I mean by romance." She smoothed the hair back from her temples and adjusted her hairpins as she smiled warmly. "Romance is flowers and poetry, sweet quiet moments and longing looks."

Jedwin swallowed. Carefully, he chose his words, trying not to offend.

"I thought
romance
was ... ah ... usually reserved for ... ah ... for honorable intentions," he managed finally.

Cora's eyes widened and her smile was playful. "And your intentions are not honorable, Mr. Sparrow?"

Jedwin raised his chin and spoke gruffly. "No, ma'am," he said. "They are not."

After a moment's hesitation, a small, light giggle escaped Cora's lips. "I admire honesty in a man, Mr. Sparrow," she said. "Perhaps you should try to remember that as our acquaintance progresses."

"Our acquaintance?" Jedwin's question was wary.

"Yes, our acquaintance," Cora answered. Her tone was almost businesslike. "I do find you rather attractive, Mr. Sparrow. With that curly blond hair and those brown eyes, I'm sure you turn the girls' heads at all the church socials."

Jedwin opened his mouth to deny it, but Cora didn't let him speak.

"As you said yourself, I rarely go out. For all my wicked reputation, I can assure you that I find life in Dead Dog infinitely boring."

Leaning back in her rocker, Cora crossed her legs, deliberately revealing a good three inches of leather-shod ankle.

Jedwin's gaze was immediately drawn to the sight. When she casually traced her toe along the floor, his throat became as dry as the inside of a cotton gin.

"I would imagine that a dalliance with a strong, handsome young man like yourself could prove . . . amusing," she said.

Jedwin was almost stunned speechless by his good luck. Her smile was open, welcome, inviting.”You . . . want me ... well . . . ?"

"My dear Jedwin," Cora answered softly. "I intend to allow you the honor of attempting to win me."

"Win you?"

"Win me, woo me—" Cora hesitated momentarily. "Seduce me. Is that what you have in mind, Jedwin?"

Pulling uncomfortably at his blue print neckerchief, Jedwin found it suddenly quite warm and airless in the tiny cottage.

She said yes.
At least, that's what he'd thought she'd said. His wild dream had come true. She was going to let him touch her and kiss her, and eventually seduce her!

He stared at her now, imagining. What would that thick sorrel hair look like draped about her shoulders? Was that generous bosom mostly ruffles or mostly woman? Would her pale skin feel as soft as it looked? And when would she let him touch her?

Cora's eyes met his, and her heart caught in her throat. The intensity of his gaze was focused on her now and she was suddenly afraid of the risky game she played.

She'd thought of him as a boy, but in that instant Cora realized that young Jedwin Sparrow was a man, very much a man, and toying with him was surely foolhardy if not dangerous.

"Would you care for tea, Mr. Sparrow?" she said suddenly.

"Tea?" Jedwin repeated as if it were some strange foreign phrase.

Clearing her throat, Cora raised her eyebrows assessingly. "Tea, Mr. Sparrow, is a civilized drink that a gentleman and his lady friend might share as they become acquainted."

Jedwin nodded mutely. But in his mind he was coming to some conclusions. Easy now, he cautioned himself. She wasn't ready to let him touch her yet She wasted to dress it up a little, make it seem more like courting and less like sin. He understood that.

Be calm, be polite, play along,
Jedwin admonished himself. In another hour they'd be alone upstairs.

"Please, Mrs. Briggs," he said with his most sincere undertaker's tone. "I would love to take tea with you."

Cora sighed with genuine relief.

"Fine. I'll see you tomorrow at four then."

"Excuse me?"

"Tomorrow at four," she said. Her smile was uncompromising. "You may come for tea tomorrow, at four."

Chapter Three

"James Edwin! Come into this parlor this minute!" The stern voice rang out the minute Jedwin opened his front door.

"Yes, Mama," he answered as he hung his hat on the rack. His steps were leisurely and unhurried despite the pique in his mother's voice.

The "family parlor" was in the back of the imposing red-brick house, which the sign over the entrance described as sparrow mortuary and funeral parlor. His mother had designed the place herself with the most modern of funeral-home architecture in mind.

"Where on this earth have you been all evening?" she asked tartly as he stepped across the threshold.

Jedwin smiled.

Amelia Pratt Sparrow sat like a queen on a throne in the richly carved oak divan with blue damask upholstery. Although she was officially in "lavender mourning," the dress she wore was a deep rich color, almost purple, which showed her blond curls, pulled into a gentle matron's knot, to best advantage.

"I've been out with friends, Mama," Jedwin answered easily as he stepped across the room to place a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I left a message that you shouldn't wait up."

"That I shouldn't wait up?" His mother's words were as incredulous as they were dramatic. "That silly hired girl tells me that my
only
son has gone out somewhere I don't know, to see someone I don't know, for some purpose I couldn't guess, and that
I
am not supposed to wait up?'' She gave a glance to heaven and a gesture of helplessness.

"I'm sorry, Mama," Jedwin said automatically and with very little apology. "Next time I will tell you in person. But you really shouldn't wait up."

Amelia hated it when she couldn't make him feel guilty. She tried another tactic, dabbing daintily at the nonexistent tears in her eyes with a lacy black hanky.

"Precious, you know how I worry," she whined in a much too girlish tone.

Jedwin very well knew. His mother had hovered over him like a shadow for as long as he could remember. Even when his father was still alive, Mama had always been there, always between them. Always taking Jedwin's side against his father and then making Jedwin do what
she
thought was best.

"There is nothing to worry about," Jedwin said calmly. "I'm a grown man, Mama. I can take very good care of myself."

Amelia gave a little sigh, followed by a pout that had been her trademark since girlhood. “I know you can, James Edwin, but Mama gets so lonely in this big house without you." Her expression sought pity. "If only you had a wife and children to give me some comfort when you are away."

Jedwin looked at his mother and sighed in defeat. There was nothing he wanted more than to go up to his own room, lie in the darkness of his own bed, and relive the last hour with Cora Briggs. The excitement, the disappointment, the anticipation all ricocheted through his brain like an explosion at a munitions factory. He wanted to examine each thought and feeling, savor each fear and fantasy.

But Mama wanted to talk to him. And, as so often with Mama, it was easiest to give in. Poshing.baek his own wishes, Jedwin seated himself comfortably in his armchair. Mama was alone in the world, except for himself; a fact she reminded him of almost on a daily basis. Although Jedwin loved his mother, her love was sometimes a burden.

Leaning back in his chair, he crossed his legs, laying one booted ankle on his knee. "I'll be marrying one of these days, Mama," he promised. "I even have a young lady in mind."

Amelia's eyes widened with delight. "Who is it?"

"It's someone of whom you will approve," he assured her. "But she is too young to speak with as yet. She has some growing up to do and it would be imprudent of me to name her." Jedwin smiled reassuringly. "Don't worry, Mama. You'll have your daughter-in-law and grandchildren in due time."

Pursing her mouth in vexation, Amelia wasn't totally satisfied. "Well, I certainly hope that I live long enough to see that day."

Jedwin ignored this guileful threat. "You need to socialize more, Mama."

"How can I socialize?" Amelia sighed with exasperation. "You know the whole town is waiting to see if Miss Maimie is going to claim us. None of the better people would dare befriend me without her approval."

Jedwin shrugged. "Then make other friends."

"And totally ruin our chances!" Amelia's voice was almost hysterically shrill. "James Edwin, I sometimes worry if you've got good sense. If we are ever to take our rightful position in this town, we will have to do it as members of the Briggs family." Shaking her head in dismay, Amelia spoke to her son as if he weren't at all bright. "All your father's money couldn't buy us a place. Not even your fine Eastern education has helped us."

Jedwin casually studied his fingernails. "Mama, I don't have a fine Eastern education. I have an embalming certificate from Toledo Correspondence School of Mortuary Practice."

Amelia ignored him. "I thank heaven every day that Grandpa Pratt married that horrible Matilda Copper after she was widowed. It was the only intelligent thing that old man ever did. Why, if she hadn't been a second cousin to Miss Maimie we would never amount to anything."

Jedwin shook his head and stifled a smile. If there was one thing in the world that Amelia Sparrow was sure about, it was the need to tighten up her loose family ties.

Allowing her to vent her spleen, Jedwin lounged comfortably in his chair and attempted to give the appearance of listening. He had heard it all before.

"You just don't know what it was like for me," Amelia continued. "Working myself near to death on that awful pig farm." She actually shuddered from the memory. "And me, the prettiest girl in Dead Dog, probably the prettiest in the whole territory, if the truth be known," she said with typical immodesty. "Do you think I wanted to marry your father?"

Jedwin knew better but his mother didn't give him a chance to answer.

"That awful old gray beard, with his cold hands," Amelia said, shuddering as she covered her forehead with a dainty hand. Then with an aggrieved sigh she straightened her shoulders. "Of course, you know that I came to be quite fond of your father," she admitted with soulful generosity before pointing an accusing finger at Jedwin. "I was a dutiful and loving wife to the old man until the day he died."

"Yes, Mama."

"And do you know why?"

"Yes, Mama."

"I did it for you, James Edwin," she said with a self-righteous sniff. "No son of mine will have to spend his life nursemaiding some filthy hogs! I made sure of that."

Actually Jedwin preferred hogs to coffins, but he'd learned better than to voice that opinion. He often wondered what his mother would say if he pointed out that had she not married Old Jim Sparrow, she wouldn't have had a son, to raise pigs or not.

.. However, discretion being the better part of valor, Jedwin held his peace and let his mother continue her familiar tirade.

Amelia's father had raised Duroc Hogs. It was a heritage the ambitious young woman hoped to outlive. At sixteen she'd married Jim Sparrow, the aging, withered undertaker. People talked. He was more than three times her age, but he had more than three times her money. She had assumed that marriage and money would give her a degree of respectability. To her distress, social status continued to elude her.

Having felt the stain of being a social outsider only vicariously, Jedwin found her distress difficult to understand.

He hated it when she talked as if her life were over and somehow it was
his
fault.

His mouth thinned into a disagreeable line that had his mother immediately recanting.

"Not that I regret it for one minute," Amelia assured him as she turned her most gracious and long-suffering smile on him. “I only did what was expected of any normal, loving, Christian mother."

"I know, Mama," Jedwin said with only the tiniest trace of sarcastic humor. "You always do exactly what is expected of you, when you want to."

Jedwin's cynical reply went right over his mother's head as she immediately continued her conversation. Amelia Sparrow enjoyed her own talk more than anyone else's.

He did not disparage her. In fact, Jedwin admired his mother, but had few illusions about her. One advantage of growing up among the dead was knowing that rich or poor, illiterate or educated, human beings were pretty much flesh and bone and only careful and complete embalming kept them from going straight back to dust.

Jedwin had long since learned to take his fellow beings at face value. He could see faults and foibles, but rarely thought to censure.

He believed that people should be accepted as people. The fact that they were not, seemed only a strange social curiosity.

"So I realized that they would never choose a county seat named Dead Dog."

His mother's words caught Jedwin's attention.

"What are you talking about?"

Amelia puffed in exasperation. "You never listen to a word I say!"

"Yes I do," Jedwin assured her. "I just didn't hear this last."

Amelia gave a disgruntled hummph. "I've half a mind not to tell you at all."

Jedwin gave her an apologetic shrug.

She held her disapproval for a full minute before relaunching her explanation with vigor.

"It's the most perfect idea I've ever come up with," she said. "Maimie Briggs will be grateful to me till her last breath."

"Why, after all these years, would she be grateful?"

Amelia sighed with delight. "Because I'm naming the town after her."

"What?"

"I'm naming the town after her," Amelia said. "After her family—that is, after
our
family."

"What are you talking about?"

"Briggston."

"Briggston?"

Amelia's smile was dimpled with mischief. "Everyone in town is talking about what statehood is going to mean."

Jedwin couldn't deny that. Even as the U.S. Congress considered the Enabling Act, all gossip in the Twin Territories seemed to center on when and how statehood would come about and what it would change in the territory.

"You know how much Maimie wants Dead Dog to be named a county seat," Amelia said. "Well, as sure as I am living, no Washington congressman is going to consider a town for county seat that hasn't any more couth than to call itself Dead Dog."

"Mama, you can't just change a town's name," Jedwin protested.

"Well, I certainly don't know why not. It's a silly name if ever I heard one."

"The old trapper, Briggs, named it in honor of his loyal hunting animal."

"Poo!" Amelia disagreed. "Mr. Briggs should have named it for himself, not his dog."

Jedwin chuckled. "Actually, old man Briggs didn't really name the town. Maimie Briggs made up that tale for schoolchildren."

Amelia looked personally insulted. "How can you even suggest such a thing?" she asked.

Jedwin grinned. "Mama, Grandpa Pratt told me the truth years ago."

"How would he have known?"

"'Cause he was already here," Jedwin answered. "Old Henry Briggs was coming through this area trading whiskey with the Indians. He was drunk as a skunk that day. Which, according to Grandpa Pratt, was as common with him as head lice."

Amelia shuddered at the idea.

“Grandpa said that Briggs was so drunk he tripped over an old dog that was sleeping in a shady spot on the trail. Henry Briggs fell and broke his leg. He had a violent temper even when sober and, well, breaking his leg, it made him so mad that he shot that dog five times!"

Amelia gave a startled sound of disapproval.

Jedwin hooted with laughter.

“Grandpa Pratt told me that old man would still be shooting if he hadn't run out of bullets!"

Carefully adjusting the cuffs on her sleeves, Amelia gave her son a vivid expression of consternation.

"It was a Shawnee hunting party traveling through that heard the gunfire and came over to set the old man's leg and carry him out to the Pratt farm.
They
called this place Dead Dog for the carcass of that unfortunate animal. And the name just stuck."

"That is a horrible story," Amelia told him, but couldn't quite control the giggle that lurked in her smile.

Jedwin made no attempt to control his laughter. "Does Maimie Briggs know the true story, I wonder?"

Amelia blanched. "Don't you ever breathe a word of this, James Edwin! If Maimie had any idea that we know any of the family secrets, we'd be beyond the pale before morning."

Jedwin held up a hand as a vow to silence. "But if you don't intend to tell anyone the truth," he asked, "how are you going to get the name changed?"

"You don't have to show your laundry around town to wash it," Amelia insisted. "I'm going to appeal to the urbanity and sophistication of the townsfolk."

Jedwin looked at her skeptically. "I hope you aren't thinking of the townsfolk of Dead Dog. Urbanity and sophistication are not our strong points."

"You are such a gloomy Gus!" his mother said with characteristically coquettish pique. "Why, there is nothing really to change, just that sign at the railroad station and a few letters on a map."