A Family For Carter Jones. Ana Seymour
riveting gray eyes. “I think he was sincere about wanting to help. And, Lord knows, we can use all the friends we can get these days.”
“And he’s a lawyer, which is good. But why does he want to help us?”
What had he said? Something about injustice. Jennie didn’t completely buy it. Carter Jones didn’t strike her as the idealistic type. But she was afraid to offer the only other explanation that seemed logical, because it was a possibility that she didn’t even want to consider. He couldn’t be attracted to her. For one thing, they’d barely met. For another, the last thing either Jennie or her sister needed in their lives was another fast-talking, charming scalawag of a male.
She piled the last three flapjacks on the platter, then put down the turner and wiped her hands on her mother’s apron. “I don’t know. It’s probably a lawyer thing. They’re always trying to see if they can find an angle that no one else has thought of.”
Kate started to pick up the platter, but Jennie pushed her sister’s hands out of the way and lifted it herself. By now Kate had stopped protesting when Jennie took over her share of the work. “Well, it doesn’t sound as if he left a very good impression on you.”
Jennie headed toward the door of the dining room. “Good enough,” she said, keeping her voice light “At least I didn’t yell at him and slam the door in his face like the first time.”
Kate giggled. “Dorie Millard says when you treat men badly it makes them want you more.”
Dr. Millard’s daughter, Dorothy, was notorious for giving advice on romance to anyone who would listen. Jennie would have liked to discount her words as giddy nonsense, but the truth was that Dorie had always had more suitors than any other girl in town.
She hesitated a minute before she said, “Mr. Jones doesn’t want me, Kate. The idea’s absurd.” Then she pushed her way through to where the miners were impatiently awaiting their breakfast.
Kate had perked up her head at Jennie’s last words. She’d only been teasing by bringing up Dorie’s proclamation. But the break in her sister’s voice had been unmistakable. And unprecedented. Could it be possible that Jennie was finally feeling what it was to be attracted to a man? Kate smiled, then clasped her hands over her stomach and addressed her unborn child. “What do you think, sugarplum? It sounds to me like we’d better have ourselves a look at this Mr. Carter Jones.”
Jennie tried to tell herself that she was acting no differently than she would on any other day. She and Barnaby cleaned up the breakfast dishes while Kate lay down for her morning rest Then she deliberately made herself put on her gardening dress, the least attractive thing she owned, and went out to weed and pick the vegetables. She refused to admit that she was hurrying through the task so that she could clean up and change her attire. And she picked her second-best day dress, the yellow one with five pink primroses tucked along the bodice. Of course, it was the one she’d been wearing when Jack Foster had told her that the yellow dress and her glossy dark brown hair made her look as pretty as a black-eyed Susan.
If she was jumpier than normal during the day, it was because she hadn’t slept well last night, still nursing her headache and thinking about that blasted court order. It had nothing to do with the fact that every time that broken shutter in front blew open she’d thought it had been footsteps coming up the walk.
In the end it was nearly five before he came. And by then she was more or less convinced that she truly didn’t care if she saw him again. But when she opened the door to see him standing there holding a nosegay of delicate purple flowers complete with a trailing ribbon, she knew that she was in trouble.
“How are you, Mr. Jones?” she managed to say calmly enough. “Come in.”
Carter frowned. “We’d progressed farther than that last night,” he said, handing her the flowers with a slight bow. “You called me Carter, remember?”
Jennie remembered every second of last night’s encounter. But she said, “It was done under duress, I believe.”
Carter laughed. “Turning legal on me, are you?”
“It’s your profession, Counselor.” The banter was making Jennie feel giddy. Growing up, she’d avoided the casual flirtations with the boys in town, preferring the solitude of home with her books or her music. Kate had always been the one who’d drawn the boys’ eyes, and that had been fine with Jennie. After Kate’s disaster with Sean Flaherty, Jennie was even more strongly convinced that men were not a necessary ingredient for happiness. Indeed, they could sometimes be the major obstacle to it.
Which didn’t explain why she was standing in her front doorway, grinning up at Carter Jones as if he were the candy man at the circus. She forced her face into a more sedate expression, took the flowers from him and gestured for him to come in.
“You can finally meet my sister,” she told him over her shoulder. “She’s back in the kitchen shelling some peas for supper.”
Carter touched her arm. His fingers were warm through the soft yellow muslin of her dress. “Would you mind if I spoke to you alone first?” he asked.
His suddenly serious tone made her stop at once. She turned back toward him. “Of course. We’ll go into the parlor.”
Once again they entered under the draped archway, but this time the room was empty. The table the miners had used for their card game was pushed back against the wall and held a vase of freshly cut flowers. Carter pointed across the room to the piano. “Do you play?”
Jennie nodded. “Yes. And Kate sings. We’re kind of a team,” she added with a smile. She sat down in one of the tufted chairs and motioned for Carter to take the settee.
“You and your sister watch out for each other,” he observed.
“Yes. We always have. But now more than ever since our parents are gone. Kate’s all I have.”
Carter’s face was still grave. “This has been difficult for you, then.”
“Losing one’s parents is one of the most difficult things…”
“No, I mean about your sister. Her…ah…problem.”
Jennie was silent for a moment. Finally she said simply, “Yes.”
“Then I hope you won’t think I’m presumptuous when I tell you I’ve been doing some work today on your dilemma.”
“Of course not.” She smiled at him. “I told you yesterday that I was sorry our first meeting was so…abrasive. I appreciate your help. Truly. Both Kate and I do.”
Carter gave a brisk nod. “First I should tell you that it appears that the court’s order on your zoning infraction is perfectly legal.”
Jennie’s smile faltered. “You mean, they have the right to make us stop renting to the silverheels…to the miners.”
Carter nodded. “So I decided we needed another approach.”
Jennie leaned against the back of the chair. Something about Carter’s businesslike manner was beginning to make her feel uncomfortable. He seemed different than he had in the dim kitchen light last night when he’d taken hold of her hand. Now he seemed more lawyerlike, more like the overbearing males who’d dealt with her case when she’d gone to the district court to give her side on the zoning issue. “Another approach?” she asked warily.
“I talked to the members of the town council.”
Jennie’s shoulders sagged against the back of the chair. “You mean you talked with Henrietta Billingsley. Because Henry Billingsley runs the council and Henrietta runs him.”
“Yes, Mrs. Billingsley was involved in our discussions.”
“I’ll bet she was.”
“But I think we were able to come to an agreement that will satisfy everyone.”