The giant hadn’t moved. Lorna levered her arm, testing the weight of the hand cutters. Without a doubt, the stranger had the meat and the muscle, but she had her newly earned lucidity. No man would ever get the best of her again.
The stranger staring at the house suddenly smiled, releasing the years from his face, adding devilish lights. Lorna locked her knees, the pad of her index finger testing the pruners’ pointed tips. She’d seen smiles come easily like that before.
HOPE, JULIUS HOLT thought. It was the town’s name. It was also what had brought him here. He liked it—the name—and that was good enough reason as any for a man with no patience for self-examination. He’d seen the Help Wanted ad and followed the road that shadowed the river’s path to the south, the route so curved he could only see to the next bend and then no farther. He’d seen the fields first, then the orchard stretching to the sky’s line. Many of the trees had been let go too long. Their branches were tangled or reached wide, shivering in the slight breeze, but light showed between the stripped limbs, and their rows were neat and even. He’d let the thick-trunked trees lead him, imagining a farmhouse at their end so old and settled no windows opened without a wrestle. The outside could probably use paint, but snow crocuses would be coming through the moist soil and lilac bushes would soon bud to soften the house’s plain corners. And beneath that shingled roof, there would be a family, a dog that rarely barked and a million memories. Julius had followed the long road, the gray trees to his right and the river too far in the distance to hear its flow, and imagined that house as clearly as he knew no hard-living man such as himself belonged there. Then he’d rounded a curve and been stopped cold by those canary-yellow shutters as out of place as he’d been his whole life. He’d pulled over to the side, gotten out, taken only a few steps when those brassy shutters stopped him once more. He’d smiled and thought, Well, I’ll be damned. Hope.
He was at the orchard’s edge when a sharp green streak flashed between all that gray. A thin, tall woman stepped out from the angled rows in a vivid lime sweatsuit completely at odds with her pinched lips and her brow’s stern set. It was another sight so unexpected his smile came back wider. He stood, grinning ear to ear, knowing he looked as idiotic as the rail of a woman draped in Mardi Gras colors and aiming the pruners’ steel points at his heart.
“Ma’am.” He nodded.
“It’s ‘miss,”’ she corrected, her superior tone harsh to his ears.
“Miss,” he obliged. He reached into his back pocket, she all the time eyeing him, her grip strong on the cutters. He pulled out a torn piece of newspaper, unfolded it. “I’ve come about the job.”
Her eyes narrowed to inspect him. He kept his gaze steady and waited for her to speak. Her eyes were the gray-green of a river and soft as the rest of her seemed hard. She blinked fast. Her eyes narrowed even further. She pressed a hand to her stomach and raised her other arm, brushing it across her brow’s high slope, pointing the cutters heavenward. She blinked hard. Her expression shifted. He saw the surprise in her features such as he’d felt moments ago. Her arm dropped. The cutters hit the ground. The woman swayed like the spare, overgrown limbs behind them.
“Ma’am…I mean, miss…”
He looked into her eyes. Helplessness came into the gray-green waters as the woman whispered in a most confounding feminine plea, “Oh, my,” and keeled over onto his feet.
“Miss? Miss?” Julius squatted and shook the woman’s shoulder. Her eyes stayed closed, but she seemed to be breathing. He shook her shoulder harder. “C’mon, lady, don’t leave me now,” he heard himself plead as if he’d been searching his whole life for a carnival-colored, run-down farm with a mistress to match. He picked up her sharp-boned wrist, grateful for the faint but steady pulse beneath his fingertips. He patted the back of her hand, glancing around. Even if he was the type to yell for help, there didn’t seem to be another soul about the place. He looked down at the long-boned woman. Her face, relieved of expression, had lost its stern lines. Her skin was clear and smooth as the day’s rise.
He checked again but saw no one. “Damn.” He gathered the woman in his arms and lifted her.
LORNA WAS FLOATING, the gentle, rocking motion and pleasant solid warmth too agreeable to give up. She cracked her eyes, stared at a gold glint just beyond her nose, focusing until a saintly face became recognizable. She reached to touch the shining face.
“Saint Nicholas.”
She snapped her head back. Past a thick neck, the gold image suspended on a chain around it, she saw the man. His full lips were dry and naturally curved as if always amused. His eyes were a startling hot blue, the exact shade she’d envisioned painting the front door. The color caught and held her.
“Patron saint of—”
She heard no more, twisting like a wild animal in the powerful arms around her. Her hands flailed at the man’s face. “Let me go.”
“Easy now,” the man said, with such an note of tenderness she was startled into a second of submission. The beat of his heart was beside her ear. The rhythm matched each step he took. She arched her body and thrashed once more.
“There now.” Even as her hands struck at him, caught him square on his jaw, he eased her onto the porch steps with the same surprising gentleness she’d heard in his voice. He stepped back, not even bothering to rub his chin where her blows had landed. He looked down at her with his always-amused expression. Her chest heaving from the fight still boiling within her, she glared at him, gathering details for the police report. His features were strong, blunt, like stone whose lines had been gradually worn by the elements. His eyebrows were thick, black and heavy, emphasizing the lightning blue of his eyes. She could still feel his arms around her.
“You might better sit a moment or two. You went down like a sack of potatoes, miss.”
“I fainted?” she asked, though now she remembered the dizzying wave, the light-headedness that often came when she rose too fast or forgot to eat. Her anger lessened as quickly as it’d been ignited. She sucked in her cheeks and looked away, her irritation only at herself. She felt like a fool. “I skipped breakfast.” Actually she’d tried a few saltines but hadn’t been able to keep them down. She glanced at her watch. “And lunch.”
She pushed herself off the steps.
“You should sit.”
“Thank you, I’m fine.” She ran her hand across her crown, checking for loose strands as she drew herself up. “Thank you for your help.”
The man’s hands reached out to steady her. She stared at those large wide hands, remembering their strength. She raised her head, met those brilliant blue eyes. She made her voice all business. “You’re interested in the position?”
He studied her. She was taller than an average woman and long limbed, long fingered. Her face was long, too, and her lips full but pressed fast to each other. Her nostrils were cut high. Her gray-green eyes were flat as smoke now but closed, their lids were milk-white and fine veined as lace. And when they’d first opened, as he’d carried her in his arms, those eyes had held the sweetness men oftentimes thought about at night.
Those eyes focused on him now with the sober stare of a taskmaster. Turn and run, he thought, self-preservation his first instinct. But behind the woman, he saw those wild yellow shutters, proclaiming their right to be. “Yes, Miss—”
She brushed her hand once more across her smooth crown, looked tired. “It’s Mrs., truth be told.”
She felt the dizziness come again as his blue eyes examined her. She reached for the porch rail, but when his eyes darkened with concern, she straightened and stood without support. “Mrs. O’Reilly.”
“Mrs. O’Reilly.”