This Loving Land - Dorothy Garlock [70]
She peered out the window. A blaze of lightning showed Jesse racing toward the house. She flung the door open as he got there. He ducked inside just as the storm struck. The rain came in a tremendous sheet and, driven by the powerful wind, hit the side of the cabin with a force that shook the walls.
Happiness bubbled up in Sadie and she laughed up at Jesse. He laughed with her, and the change in his face was astonishing.
“Yore all wet! I’ll get you a towel.”
His gray eyes clung to her face. “I’d a been wetter if you hadn’t a had the door open.” He wiped his face and hair on the towel. At the washstand he washed his hands and used the comb that lay in the comb case attached to the wall. His hair was surprisingly thick and curled back from his forehead in deep waves.
“I’m surprised the young’uns are still asleep after all that racket the thunder made, but they play so hard they’re wore out by night-time. You know how kids are, got more ginger than brains.” She moved quickly and set two cups on the table after whipping away the cloth that covered the caster set. “That’s a fierce storm,” she said after another particularly loud clap of thunder. “I was in one once in a covered wagon and, I tell you, there ain’t nothin’ scarier.” Pinching the doughnuts in the warming oven to test their freshness, she wished they were a day newer and said so. “If’n I’d a cooked doughnuts today like I was goin’ to, they would be a heap better. The men on this place! Land-a-goshen, how they eat doughnuts. They’d eat ’em if’n they was a month old and the crows had been at ’em.”
She set the plate on the table and looked at Jesse. His face was relaxed and his usually grim mouth was slightly parted and tilted at the corners. His eyes . . . how could she have thought they were cold? They were warm and bright and . . . twinkling! Color came slowly up her neck and turned her cheeks crimson. She put her palms against them.
“I’m a talkin’ too much? she wailed.
Jesse put his head back and laughed out loud. The sound startled her. He got to his feet and reached her in one stride. He pulled her hands from her face.
“I was hopin’ you wouldn’t stop.” He released her hands. “Sit down. I’ll pour the coffee.”
Sadie sank down in the chair and stared straight ahead, her face red, her hands dug deep in her lap. She sat there, feeling an aching torment. Why had she made such a jackass out of herself by rattling on like that?
Jesse was on his second doughnut and she hadn’t said another word.
“You’re not all talked out, are you?” His voice held a tinge of amusement.
Her green eyes lifted from her cup and dejectedly gazed into his. “Sometimes, my mouth works and my brains don’t.”
He laughed again. “You still make a mighty good doughnut.”
From the laughter in his eyes, she knew he was teasing, and her pounding heart released a flood of happiness that reflected in her brilliant smile.
The thunder rolled and the wind-driven rain lashed the house. A small puddle of water began to form under the door. Sadie placed a rag rug against the door, stepping on it so it would absorb the water. Jesse refilled their cups and it gave her a chance to look at him without his steady gray eyes on her. He was as tall as Slater and slightly heavier. This was the first time she had seen him without a hat. His hair had silver strands at the temples. She suspected he was the type of man whose hair would be completely gray before he was very old.
Jesse sat down and stretched his legs out in front of him.
“Mama . . . pee, pee.” Mary came out from behind the curtain. Her bronze curls, so like