Help Wanted: Husband?. Darlene Scalera
of his reply. Maybe it was the recognition of his pigheaded pride, as stubborn and strong as her own. Again Julius didn’t know, but then, if he wouldn’t be darned, Lorna’s tightly pressed lips relented and a genuine, amused laugh came from between them. His prediction had been right—Lorna O’Reilly’s laughter did sound pretty. He stared at her. This lady was a complete mystery.
She picked up the dishcloth again. “Kitchen’s closing, Mr. Holt. And I have some reading I’m anxious to get to.”
“On how to be a farmer, Mrs. O’Reilly?” He couldn’t resist.
She rinsed the frying pan and set it carefully in the drainer. She unplugged the sink, wrung out the striped dishcloth and folded it neatly. Finally she faced him, her hands clasped at her waist. “I intend to make this farm a success, Mr. Holt. With or without you.”
“Well, Mrs. O’Reilly—” he scratched his chest as he stared at her “—the jury’s still out on that one.” He turned and left.
AS SOON AS THE DOOR CLOSED, Lorna marched over and locked it. She told herself not to watch him, but she stood there even after his broad, tall figure disappeared around the corner. Inside her, she still heard his rich laughter. Her hands tightened on the door-knob. She looked down to their betraying grasp. They were raw knuckled, red and dry from the dishwater. A spinster’s hands, she thought. She had been married, widowed, but her heart had turned cold in the process. Now she had a spinster’s hands…and a spinster’s soul. She pushed back the sadness that tried to creep in.
She knew Julius Holt, with his deep laughter and easy ways, saw only a dried-up shell of a woman. But she hadn’t always been so self-controlled, so inflexible and rigid that she ground her teeth in her sleep. For a long time, she’d had no will at all and such a low sense of self, she’d done whatever her father deemed best. Then, for a brief time, she’d smiled all the time and walked with such a dance in her step, she’d barely felt her feet hit the ground. She’d been as foolish then as before, letting sweet lies and skilled kisses turn her silly though she’d known she was too tall and rawboned to be called pretty, too brash and efficient in manner to be alluring. Still she’d actually believed her handsome late husband had married her for love instead of the McDonough money. Her father had snorted she had acted just like a “woman.” She’d been doubly humiliated when he’d been proved right.
The darkness was becoming heavier, blending shapes and shadows. But, in her mind, she still saw Julius with his heavy-lidded, dangerously blue eyes that seemed to look straight through to her soul—her spinster’s soul—as if he too knew the longing and loneliness that lived there. The day hadn’t even been done when the low roll of his laughter had caught her with a wash of warmness.
Already he made her feel something other than wariness and fear and vigilant control. He made her feel what she’d vowed she’d never let another human being make her feel again. Vulnerable.
She closed her eyes, leaned her forehead to the cool glass. The hell of it was Julius Holt was perfect for her purpose. Not only was he a larger-than-life reminder of her past foolishness, but he also had the knowledge, the experience and the sheer brute strength she needed to succeed. She pressed her hand to her middle. She had to succeed.
She’d cut out her tongue before she’d admit it, but she needed Julius Holt.
Behind her closed eyes, she once more saw Julius’s infuriating smile, those eyes like a starry night. And even as she gritted her teeth and fisted her hands, she heard the tiny prayer inside her. Please stay.
JULIUS WAS ON the back steps at four-thirty the next morning, smiling smugly as he enjoyed the gray ice sky of pale stars. He didn’t know if it was his empty stomach or his need to show up the schoolmarm that’d led him here at this ungodly hour, but whatever it was, now that he was here, surrounded by the dawn’s brittle dreamscape, he was glad.
He glanced at his watch. Four forty-five and still the house behind him was dark and silent. Wouldn’t that be something if Mother Superior was late? He smiled, even though he knew it was an impossibility.
He was waiting for the sky’s first streaks of blue, although the throbbing in his knee told him today’s weather would be contrary, when he saw Lorna come out of the woods. She walked along the outer boundary of apple trees leading to the house. What’d she do? Stand sentry all night?
She was a bright spot as she moved through the morning, her coat opened, revealing a vivid orange T-shirt and high-perched breasts. The straight-legged denims she wore showcased a slim waist, nicely rounded hips and long, lean legs that scissored smoothly as she walked. She twisted her head side to side, then up toward the stars as if trying to work out a kink in her neck, and he saw her hair loose and soft in the vague light. She moved through the morning, determination and purpose in her every step and a solitariness about her that made him watch her and wonder. She was still some distance away and before she looked to the back porch and saw him, he watched her and thought her beautiful.
She spotted him. Her surprise was instantly replaced by vigilance, her stride checked by tension. Still she favored him with a closemouthed smile as she approached. “I see you’ll not miss breakfast.”
“I was beginning to worry it might be you who overslept this morning.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Patrolling the grounds, warden?”
“Weather cooperating, I usually take a walk at this hour.” She propped a sneakered foot on the bottom step and bent over to refasten a lace. “I find it clears the mind and quiets the heart.”
A thousand teasing retorts were on the tip of his tongue as she raised her head. Their gazes met and for a breath, before she sharply turned, he saw in those still gray-green waters what he himself had known his whole life—faceless, nameless longing.
She straightened. He wasn’t sure he hadn’t imagined the moment in the dawn’s crisp dream. Still he didn’t speak. She mounted the stairs. “Last night you were late.” She unlocked the door. “This morning you’re early. Do you ever follow the rules, Mr. Holt?”
His soft laughter followed her up the stairs. “What do you think, Mrs. O’Reilly?”
She paused at the door, her back to him. “I think you wonder what good are rules if you can’t break them?” She disappeared inside the house, his low, heated laughter following her. He sat smiling, enjoying the morning’s beginning a minute more, when her lean shadow stretched across him. He turned to her long figure above him.
She cocked her hips, her hands on their pointy angles. “Are you planning on sitting out there all day?” She spun around before he could answer.
Julius chuckled. “Guess not,” he said to the morning. He moved up the steps and into the kitchen to begin his day with Mrs. Lorna O’Reilly. His smile widened as he smelled the welcome call of coffee and the lingering traces of yesterday’s bread.
“I started the coffee before I went for my walk.” Lorna nodded in the direction of the coffee machine on the counter. “There are cups and spoons there. Creamer’s in the refrigerator. Sugar’s on the counter. I won’t wait on you.”
His eyes followed her as she moved about the kitchen, grabbing the skillet from the drainer, butter and eggs from the refrigerator. With aggravated breaths, she brushed at her hair as it fell from her shoulders and curved around her face, framing her sharp features. He poured a cup of coffee, leaned against the counter, and took a sip. “I like your hair down.”
She cracked an egg against the skillet’s rim. He waited for a stinging reply as she scowled down at the sputtering egg. But then her shoulders sagged. She glanced at him but didn’t say anything.
He was almost disappointed. “Can I pour you a cup of coffee, Mrs. O’Reilly?”
“You don’t have to wait on me either.”
“It’d be my pleasure after all your warm hospitality.”
She shot him a cool glance, but again said nothing. She reached and opened a drawer near the stove, fished out a rubber band and slammed the drawer