Garters.htm by Pamela Morsi Read Free Book Online Page B

the brooding pond. He had hoped that upon further reflection, she would be scared off, but first thing the next morning she showed up at the store as bold as brass.
    "Just came for some of those peach preserves," she told him, sashaying to the back of the store with the provocative loose-hipped walk that she'd affected of late.
    He'd tried not to watch her as she fixed herself a cracker with jelly. When she then seated herself by the stove facing him, he had no choice but to look away.
    She'd leave in a minute, he'd promised himself. But he'd been wrong. That young woman had stayed virtually the whole day. She was sitting in his chair, munching on his food, visiting with his customers, and every so often, when they were alone, edging up her skirts to adjust those ragged stockings of hers, and although slightly less noticeably than that first time, he'd gotten several good glimpses of her shapely calves and ankles.
    It was beyond all human understanding.
    If that had been the last of it, maybe he could have just laughed it off. But night after night she stood on the hill and longingly watched him tend the fish. She followed him at a distance wherever he went. And now she even peeped at him in his own house!
    Washing off the last of his shaving soap, Cleav determined that he would have it out with her today. What in the name of heaven was she up to anyway?
    The memory of those words, "
You wanna marry me?"
, continued to haunt him. It was just a foolish crush, he assured himself. Surely the young woman was not so ignorant that she didn't realize how unsuited she was to be his wife.
    Wiping his face and head with a clean white towel, Cleav made a quick perusal of his features. Maybe the girl really did fancy herself in love with him.
    Running a comb through the damp brown tangles on his head, he wondered how he appeared to her. She seemed very young, and he had never noticed her in the store until a few days before. Maybe he was the first man she'd taken notice of.
    Feminine sensibilities were strange and irrational. He'd heard stories about young women who placed their affections on poets and actors, men with whom there was no possibility of reciprocation. Perhaps her sudden preoccupation with him was a similar species of feminine hysteria. Whatever, it was deuced disconcerting.
     
    Esme stood near the edge of the front path to the big white house. A little shiver ran through her as the north wind blew through the thin material of her coat. Winter was not quite gone.. But now, staring at the big white house that belonged to Cleavis Rhy, she was warmed by thoughts of her future.
    It should be blue, she thought to herself as she eyed the stately two-story edifice sitting in the little gap between the mountains. Vader had a shortage of sky, Esme thought, so the house should be blue, like a piece of heaven brought down to earth.
    Her imagination conjured the sight of the big blue house trimmed in white like summer clouds. She could almost see Pa sitting in a slat-back chair on that wide wraparound porch. He'd be playing the fiddle: a soft and sweet tune. The twins would be sitting in the swing, of course, in matching dresses of white lawn. They'd make a sight so pretty no man could resist. And herself… Somehow she could not quite place herself in the picture. She'd be wherever Cleav was.
    Leaning tiredly against the sturdy sycamore, she strained her eyes to make out Cleav's form through the window. He was washing up, she suspected, and he'd notice her soon if he hadn't already.
    In the past week she'd learned a lot about Cleavis Rhy.
    Things that, Esme was sure, a young wife should know about a man if she was hoping to help him. The first thing she'd learned was that he worked hard. He was up every day before dawn and started up his own fire in the kitchen. He took care of the chores and had the store open by six o'clock. Except for an hour or so in the afternoon when he went to the ponds, he worked stocking, helping customers,