WILD OATS (5 page)

He stared mutely at her for a moment. She had not taken the hint! When she continued to look at him curiously, he realized that she'd asked him a question.

"Cream?" he responded finally. "Oh no, cream is not necessary."

"That's fortunate." Cora brought the steeping teapot to the table. It was Fairy pattern French china decorated with a delicate blue forget-me-not spray and a gold-traced handle.

As Cora poured the tea into the plain bone china cups, Jedwin immediately noted the startling contrast between the fanciful teapot and the cheaper cups.

"What a lovely teapot," he said conversationally.

Cora raised her gaze to his and smiled. "It was a wedding present from your mother."

She set the pot between them, and Jedwin eyed it with displeasure.

As he sipped his tea, he wondered how he was doing. After last night, he hadn't expected to be immediately invited to the bedroom, but he had hoped to make some progress toward that end.

She looked beautiful in the daylight, he decided. Casually he sneaked a glance at her bosom. It was said that you could tell the real thing from ruffles by the degree of roundness and a distinct separation of the two mounds. It definitely looked as if she had two separate hills. He was trying to make a judgment when he caught her eye.

Her cheeks were fiery red. "Do have a cookie, Jedwin," Cora said, offering the tray.

Jedwin took three and set them casually on the small white plate before him. Mentally kicking himself for embarrassing her, he eagerly took a bite in hopes of making up lost ground. The cookies were more tart than sweet and Jedwin liked them immediately. He raised his chin to comment on the fact, only to find himself staring at the teapot. She had moved it to sit directly in front of her. His appetite immediately deserted him.

"So, Jedwin," Cora said with appropriate civility. "Tell me about your work."

"My work?" Jedwin was flabbergasted.

"Yes," Cora explained calmly. "Gentlemen usually talk about their work over tea."

Staring at her, Jedwin was sure that she knew of what she spoke. Probably she'd had tea with dozens of men. Men who were far more refined and debonair than himself. Undoubtedly bankers, farmers, perhaps even plumbers could speak of their daily activities with a young woman like Mrs. Briggs with wit and interest. Mortuary service, however, was not something one usually discussed over food.

"I'd rather hear about you, Mrs. Briggs," he said.

Cora glanced up from her tea, startled.
All
men wanted to talk about themselves. In fact, it was her experience that it was almost the
only
thing they wanted to talk about. Why would this man want to know about her? An unpleasant answer came to her. He wanted the details.

"Myself? Jedwin, surely you already know everything about me." More bitterly she added, "The whole town knows about me."

Jedwin remonstrated himself again for his clumsiness. He knew exactly the appropriate things to say to families of the dead, but he had no idea how to talk to a beautiful woman so full of life.

Occasionally he'd walked out with one of the local girls. They'd mostly done the talking, cooing over some new geegaw or spreading stories about their best friends. Jedwin had paid little attention. His main concern was that their time alone be long enough to show that he was courting and short enough so that the girl's parents wouldn't think his intentions were serious.

If he spoke at all, it would be about mutual friends or activities in the town. He and Mrs. Briggs had no mutual friends and she was not welcome at town activities. Jedwin frantically searched his brain for a conversation topic.

"I saw you ride out on your bicycle this morning," he tried finally.

"Oh?"

Jedwin warmed to the subject. "That's usually the time that I take a few moments for myself. I see you go by almost every day."

"Oh." Cora was aware that men watched her. Somehow it bothered her that he was one of those men.

"Where do you go?" Jedwin asked.

"Where do you think I go?" Cora's tart words were defensive.

Jedwin was surprised at her pique. "Why, I don't know," he admitted. “I guess I never thought about it."

Cora looked at the young man across the table and saw only sincerity in his eyes. She knew that rumors in town ranged from selling her body in Low Town to meeting Guthrie businessmen for a quick tumble on the seat of a fancy city rig.

"Actually I ride up to the river bluff," Cora heard herself telling him.

"That far?" Jedwin was clearly impressed.

"It's only five miles." Cora took a sip of her tea. She realized that she sincerely wanted to talk about her life. It had been years since she'd had a discussion of any kind with anyone. Jedwin Sparrow might have dishonorable intentions, but at the moment he was a captive audience.

"I am a great believer in the benefits of regular exercise."

"Oh, really," Jedwin replied politely, but with little interest.

"I've read most of the major thinkers on the subject, and find the philosophy of Mrs. Daisy Millenbutter follows most closely with my own."

Jedwin nodded. "I'm unfamiliar with Mrs. Millenbutter," he said.

"Perhaps I can lend you her book. She is truly most modern in her concepts of corporeality and spirituality as coexistent.

The physical body is actually a proportionate blend of matter and energy," she explained. "Those two must remain in perfect balance for consummate human functioning."

Jedwin raised his eyebrows in surprise. He'd never heard such an idea. And couldn't imagine a woman having one. But then Cora Briggs was no ordinary woman.

Until eight years ago, Cora Briggs had been a decent, church-going woman. Reared in a Methodist orphanage and decently married to the town's leading citizen, no one suspected she would fall from grace. Jedwin could hardly remember her from that time. With his father still alive and his own demons to fight, teenage Jedwin had hardly been aware of Luther Briggs's marriage. His mother had talked of nothing else, worrying that the "little nobody" was not doing what Maimie wanted.

Her divorce, however, was the stuff of schoolyard legend. Divorce was not rare in the territory. In fact, with its progressive divorce laws, Guthrie was considered a haven of sorts for people all over the nation to get a quick sundering from an unwanted partner. Those divorces, however, involved strangers. Luther and Cora Briggs were not strangers in Dead Dog. And the cause of their breakup was mysterious enough to capture the imagination of every youth at school.

"She divorced him for desertion," Titus Penny had announced during a break from stickball. "But he didn't leave until she filed for divorce. So that's a damn lie for sure."

His news, which was undoubtedly accurate since his father had the Guthrie paper delivered twice a week, brought immediate speculation.

"My dad says that most divorced women are whores," Clyde Ayery said. "A decent woman would stay with her man, no matter what."

Clyde's use of the word
whore
was almost as exciting as his father's declaration. A real whore in Dead Dog! It was almost more than the pack of fifteen-year-olds could contemplate.

Jedwin had made a point to get a good look at her. After he'd finished his chores the next day he'd sneaked down to the cottage and hidden in the shrubbery near the fence. He'd waited for what seemed like hours for the divorced Mrs. Briggs to appear.

Finally she'd walked out to take some sheets from the line. Jedwin's eyes had immediately token in her womanly shape and handsome profile. When she'd raised her arms to the sheets, his gaze had been immediately drawn to the roundness of her bosom.

His physical reaction had been exactly what was to be expected of a youth of his age. Cora Briggs had been the first woman to make him experience desire. And his desire for her had colored all his dreams and expectations of women, both decent and indecent, from that day forward . . .

"Now matter," Cora continued patiently across from him at the kitchen table, "is more or less constant. But energy tends to build up within the nervous system. If that energy is not released on a regular basis, it begins to outbalance matter." Cora shook her head with dismay. "You can imagine the result."

"I can imagine," Jedwin lied. He'd allowed his thoughts to roam to the past and had lost the thread of the conversation.

"The result," Cora said, "is improper bodily functioning, ill health, and ultimately waste and death." Cora's declaration was adamant and her tone solemn.

Jedwin was puzzled by her strange words. What on earth could the woman be speaking of? Women were only interested in gossip, clothing, houses, and men. Usually in that order. Why on earth would a woman speak of energy and exercise?

As if a devil had alighted on his shoulder, Jedwin suddenly understood what he thought she was saying.

Haywood Puser had a similar philosophy.

A man's got to have a woman from time to time, Haywood frequently told him. All that wanting just builds up inside a man and he's got to have a woman or die trying.

Jedwin stifled a smile. Apparently, Cora was saying that she also had needs that she had to "get out or die trying." He'd heard his mother's horrified whispers with Maimie about the unhealthy indecency of a woman
straddling
a bicycle. If Cora Briggs was riding her bicycle daily, she must be needing him as much as he needed her.

"I've had similar thoughts myself, Mrs. Briggs," he said. Casually he stretched out his left leg and as if by accident pressed the toe of his foot against Mrs. Briggs's instep.

Cora immediately moved her foot.

"There is no question," Cora continued, "if you read the work of Sargent or Gulick, that internal cleanliness can only be achieved by external stimuli."

Jedwin took that as an open invitation.

Rising to his feet, he grabbed up the teapot that sat like his own mother between them and put it on the kitchen cupboard. Moving his chair around the table, he sat down beside Cora.

She seemed startled by his movement, and he gave her a reassuring wink.

With his elbows on the table, Jedwin leaned toward her. His smile was enticing, masculine. And totally devastating.

"There's no question about it." His words were a low purr. "That energy just builds and builds until we've got to get it out, don't we?"

Cora was totally baffled and more than a little flustered by the warmth of closeness and the temptation of his smile.

"Why . . . why, uh . . . yes, exactly," she stuttered. "I was not aware that you were a proponent of physical culture."

Jedwin brought one long masculine finger to her chin, touching her for the first time and bringing her gaze up to his. "I'd thought, Mrs. Briggs, that I'd made myself very clear that I am extremely interested in anything physical that involves you."

Turning his head slightly, Jedwin closed those intense maple brown eyes and lowered his lips toward Cora. He could almost taste her already. His heart was pounding. His brain was numb. Desire rushed through him.

The warm touch of his hand on her jaw, the masculine scent of his nearness, and the tingling anticipation of the moment almost paralyzed Cora. It was so warm, so sweet, her heart suddenly ached for something she did not understand, something unknown. Inhaling the essence of him only a hairsbreadth away, she was almost mesmerized.

He is going to kiss me!
her brain finally screamed and she jumped as if there had been an actual shout.

Her chair clattered to the floor.

"Cora?" Jedwin hurried toward her, only to see her flatten herself more fearfully against the wall. "Cora, I—"

"You will refer to me as Mrs. Briggs!" Cora hissed defensively. "Now leave my house!"

Jedwin was stunned by her reaction. He reached out to comfort her.

She flinched.

Jedwin held his hands in the air beside him in a gesture to assure her she had nothing to fear.

"Please, Mrs. Briggs," he began.

"Leave my house." Her words were adamant, but Jedwin saw her swallow compulsively.

"Mrs. Briggs, forgive me," Jedwin said quietly. "Please don't make me leave. I do want to stay."

"I
know
what you want, Jedwin Sparrow. You told me yesterday, you want to sow your wild oats. Well sir, you will not sow them here!"

"Mrs. Briggs, I—"

"I am not some fancy woman that you can buy off with a few trinkets, Mr. Sparrow. I had every intention of telling you that you would
not
be allowed to call on me. Now I am more sure than ever that it is impossible."

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Briggs," Jedwin pleaded. "I thought— well, never mind what I thought. Nothing has happened, Mrs. Briggs, and I can promise you that nothing will happen between us until you are ready."

"Until
I
am ready?" Cora raised her chin haughtily. "I hate to shatter your fantasies, young man, but you will be wearing a long gray beard before
I
am ever ready for anything to happen between us!"