A Timeless Romance Anthology: Old West Collection Page 21

  Della drew close and said, “I promised Harry I’d dance with him tonight, and he’s standing by the piano looking rather forlorn. Old Sam promised a polka next, and that’s Harry’s favorite.” She turned as if to move toward Harry, but Joseph held onto her hand. She turned around, a question in her expression.

  So much Joseph wanted to say, but he struggled to speak at first. “After the polka…”

  “Yes?” she asked expectantly.

  Joseph took in the shape of her face, her peaches-and-cream skin, her long lashes, and tried to memorize it all, in case his worst fears were about to come true.

  “Joseph?” she prompted.

  “After the polka,” he repeated, “walk with me outside?” He swallowed and put on a smile. “It’s a bit hot and stuffy in here.”

  “Sure thing.” She squeezed his hand before walking away. Joseph watched every step. Of course Della would go out of her way to be Harry’s partner for his favorite dance. It was part of her nature to remember what other people cared about and then to act on that knowledge. In this case, it was making sure that Harry had at least one partner tonight and ensuring it was for the polka.

  Joseph slipped into a shadowy corner to watch Della fly about the room in rhythm to the fiddle. The grin on Harry’s face was proof enough that Della’s kindness had done its work.

  At last the polka was over. Della walked off the floor with Harry, her arm through his. They chatted a few minutes, which Joseph didn’t begrudge Harry at all, not now that he knew why Della had given him her attention. Some people might look at her and think she was nothing more than a silly girl who liked to dance, but he knew better.

  She wasn’t a silly thing at all, in spite of her occasional nonsense about leaving Shelley to explore the world. Mrs. Baker couldn’t possibly take Della away tomorrow. Even if she wanted to, and even if Della thought that’s what she wanted— and Joseph couldn’t imagine she did— Della’s parents wouldn’t allow it.

  He lost sight of her for a moment, and when he spotted her again, he could tell that somehow she’d managed to find Harry another partner. He was back on the floor getting into position with Sarah Jones, a shy little thing who probably hadn’t danced much yet tonight, and Della was just leaving their side.

  Joseph shook his head with admiration as Della reached him. “Ready for a walk?” she asked.

  “Definitely.” Joseph put out his arm for her to take, and she slipped her hand through it. Together they walked out the back door of the Parker house, past their barn, and into their apple orchard.

  Joseph had pictured this part many times. He’d even picked out which tree he’d stop at. The night was still save for the muted sound of the music and dancing in the house, their footsteps and Della’s dress swishing as she walked, and a small chorus of crickets chirping.

  A last they’d reached the spot he’d picked before, by a bench Mr. Parker had made. It stood below a tree he and the Parker girls used to play in when they were young. Now the bench was weathered, its white paint so peeled as to be almost gone, but by the light of the moon, it looked nothing short of the most romantic spot in the world. The bright moon lit up the tree and bench, casting slanted shadows all around.

  He gently handed Della toward the bench. She took the hint, sitting, and he sat beside her. “Beautiful night, isn’t it?” he said.

  “It is,” she agreed, craning her neck. “The stars are so bright.”

  Moonlight seemed to spill over her face, making her look like an angel. Joseph had to remind himself to breathe. He reached for his vest pocket. Even though he’d felt for the necklace all night, now his hand trembled so much, he had to try three times to find it this go ’round. He finally had success, however, and placed the necklace into his palm, then closed his fingers.

  “Della?” Now his voice trembled as well as his hands.

  “Yes?” Her voice was light and detached, as if her mind was lost in some dream in the stars.

  “We’ve known each other for a very long time…”

  “Ever so long,” she said, nodding slightly and still gazing at the sky.

  A smile touched her lips, her pink lips, ones he was quite sure were soft. He wanted to find out by kissing them. Somehow, Joseph went on but didn’t quite get to the point yet. “When we were in school, I used to tease you something awful. Remember the jar of spiders?”

  She laughed lightly and leaned her head against his shoulder. He wrapped his arm about her shoulders and leaned his cheek against her hair. Sitting this way felt right.

  “Of course I remember,” she said. “Those spiders gave me nightmares for two solid weeks. But you weren’t all bad. Remember how you helped me bury Bo?”

  Bo had been her dog. Six years ago, the poor mutt had gotten caught in some barbed-wire fencing and wasn’t found for two days. By then, his wounds were infected, and he was near death without food or water for so long. Joseph and Della had cared for him as best they could, and when he died, they dug his grave together and held a funeral for him. A sandstone rock they’d found in the foothills still marked his grave. Joseph remembered all too well how she’d cried in his arms after that, off and on for several days.

  “Bo was a good dog,” he said.

  “I never did thank you for helping me with him. For letting me cry so much.”

  “That’s what friends do.” Joseph’s hand slowly reached up and stroked her hair. She closed her eyes as if the sensation soothed her. “I did those things because I liked you so much and cared so much. I— I still care about you. You know that, right? More than for any other girl.” He felt her stiffen slightly, which made him chest tightened. When she didn’t speak, he did. “Della, we’re getting older now, and I reckon it’s time to start planning our futures. I’ve been thinking. I’d like—” His throat seemed to constrict; he had to clear it twice to get out another word. “I’d like to ask if you’d consider allowing me to… to court you officially.”

  Her eyes opened. She slowly lifted her head from his shoulder to sit straight again. Her mouth was a round O. Joseph opened his palm and held out the necklace. The words rushed out then; he simply jumped off the cliff. “This is for you, if you’ll consent to my being your beau. A sort of token, I suppose. It’s blue, like your eyes. It’s not real, of course, but I hope that one day, I can buy you a real gemstone, and…” He let his voice trail off, which at this point was the only way for him to stop blabbering like an idiot. Heart pounding, he lifted his palm another inch toward her and finally looked into her eyes.

  Their gaze held for several moments. She’d never looked at him like this before, with such emotion and intensity. Her eyes seemed to shine, and his heart near beat out of his chest as he waited for her to say yes and take the necklace.

  At last she made a movement. She closed her eyes, sending plump tears down each cheek, and she lowered her chin. She was crying. Tears explained her shining eyes, but…

  “Dell?” he asked warily.

  “I’m going to California, remember?”

  “You don’t have to go,” Joseph said. “I’m sure she’ll find other help. No need to feel obligated.”

  “But— but I want to go.”

  Joseph’s mind went blank for a moment. He repeated her words in his mind; they didn’t make sense. “You what?”

  Della’s shoulder sagged. “You know that this life isn’t for me. I don’t want to settle down here, with hot, dusty summers and freezing winters with ice and snow. I don’t want to barely eke out a living, hoping that this year’s crop will be enough to feed the family for the winter. I don’t want this life. You know that.”

  “I… I didn’t think you were serious.” Joseph’s hand closed over the necklace again. Of course she hated parts of life on the land. No one in their right mind looked forward to cleaning a chicken coop. But leaving home? Never. “But we’d be perfect together.”

  Della slowly, reluctantly, shook her head. “No, we wouldn’t. We’re too different. You belong here. You feel most
at home when you’re in the saddle, herding cattle or fixing a fence. But I…” She shook her head and looked down, avoiding his gaze. “I feel as if I was born in the wrong place. I don’t belong here, Joseph. We have different ideas of what happiness looks like.”

  Joseph’s voice was a mere whisper now. “And your vision of happiness doesn’t include chicken coops.”

  She nodded grudging agreement. “And a lot more than that. It also doesn’t include saddles or fences or stupid cows that run off or mosquitos or dust or—”

  “I understand.” Joseph felt like he needed to leave, but he didn’t want to.

  “Do you understand?” Della said, leaning forward now as if it were imperative that he understand her point. “There’s much more to life than just…” Her voice trailed off, but he filled in the gap.

  “Than life with a cowboy.”

  She reached for him, but he instinctively pulled away. She clasped her hands in her lap and sniffed. “I’m so sorry.”

  Joseph tried to fully comprehend what all of this meant, what was happening… and what wasn’t happening. Della, the woman who would always have his heart, was going away tomorrow with Mrs. Baker. He might not see her for years to come, if ever again.

  He’d end up an old bachelor; the look in her eyes said quite clearly that there would be no changing her mind.

  Reluctantly, he adjusted his hat then held out his other hand, opening his fingers to reveal the necklace again. “Take this anyway.”

  “But—”

  “To remember me by.” She seemed about to protest, but he insisted. “For my sake. Please.”

  After a moment, she dabbed the back of a finger to wipe her tears then nodded. “Would you put it on me?” Della turned on the bench, putting her back to him. He silently unlatched the necklace and secured it about her neck. He tried not to breathe in her perfume. When he was done, she turned to face him again and lowered her eyes to the pendant. “It’s beautiful.”

  It was. And the blue matched her eyes perfectly.

  “When you see it, think of me.” His voice sounded hoarse to his ears.

  “I will,” she said, still looking at the necklace.

  “And maybe one day when you look at it, you’ll see that we aren’t so different. I don’t mean just that we were both born here and that we both grew up on farms.”

  “Then… what?” She, too, spoke in a whisper, but now her eyes were raised to his.

  His jaw worked for a moment as he tried to put his thoughts into words. “We both see pictures in clouds.” It was a small thing, but it was true. When they were younger, they’d spent many a summer afternoon lying under a tree and pointing out pictures in the sky above them. No one else could ever see the pictures in the clouds that they did.

  Joseph went on. “We both laugh reading Mark Twain.” He didn’t have to remind her of the winter they’d spent by the stoves in each other’s houses, reading from a book of Mark Twain’s work, laughing so hard they could hardly breathe. He could tell by the way she pressed her lips together, as if she was trying not to cry, that she remembered.

  Encouraged, he tried again, this time thinking of the weak foal born only a few months ago, which he and Della had nursed to health.

  “Neither of us can stand to see an animal suffer. We both love the taste of strawberries just picked. And we both want to be happy.”

  Della didn’t answer, but her entire body seemed to tremble with emotion. She pressed her eyelids shut, and tears spilled down her cheeks. He’d made her cry. Feeling a stab of guilt, Joseph leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. He’d dreamed of pressing them to her lips, but that was not to be tonight, or likely ever.

  “Most importantly, I want you to be happy. So, go. I hope you really do find what you’re looking for out there.”

  She nodded and whispered something that may have been Thank you before he couldn’t bear to stay any longer. She reached forward to hug him, and he held her back. Finally, he kissed her hair, pulled away, stood.

  “Just remember me,” he said quietly. Then strode out of the garden without looking back.

  Chapter Four

  When the train pulled into the station in Los Angeles at last, Della breathed a sigh of relief. The hours since Joseph had left her in the orchard had dragged by, but now she was in the city. She could put away that part of her life and let herself get all excited and jittery over the sights she would finally get to see, the things she would experience that until now had only been part of her dreams.

  “Come along now, Della,” Mrs. Baker said, standing and walking toward the train door.

  Della followed obediently, brushing off the whisper of a thought that she didn’t like being spoken to like the family dog.

  But she was finally out of tiny little Shelley, she reminded herself yet again. She was away from farms and all of the work and smells they brought with them. Away from the boring, humdrum, predictable life she’d always known and hated. She lugged her own carpetbag plus Mrs. Baker’s suitcase behind her, hurrying to keep up as she walked awkwardly along, bumping the seats and other passengers as she went.

  “Sorry. Oh, I’m so sorry. Excuse me.” And so it went all along the train car until she reached the exit and stepped out of the train. Mrs. Baker helped her keep her balance as she went down the metal steps and alighted on the platform.

  I’m here. I’m really here. Della stood tall, looked about at the bustling crowd of people all around her, which moved like the busy insects in an anthill. She’d never seen so many people in one place in her life. She tried to look about her but was quickly jostled by other passengers disembarking.

  “Don’t just stand there, silly goose,” Mrs. Baker said with a high laugh. “Come along. We’ll find a cab out front, and I’ll send Charles back for our trunks.”

  Della stopped gawking, realizing that doing so made her look like some backward farm girl. If she wanted to fit in here, she needed to look like she belonged. Yet as she lugged the suitcase and stumbled along behind Mrs. Baker, she couldn’t help but look around her in awe.

  I’m allowed to gawk today. After all, I’ve never seen a city this size. Tomorrow, this will all be old hat, and I will act refined and cultured.

  They reached the street, where the buildings stood many stories high, climbing toward the sky. As Mrs. Baker went to find a carriage for hire, Della counted how many levels the tallest ones had— five on that one. Six on another. Goodness. These buildings were three times as tall as the tallest structure in Shelley. And they were all tucked side by side in rows as far as she could see. Could they really go on like this for miles and miles? The idea seemed impossible, yet she was staring at the reality.

  Mrs. Baker waved Della over to a cab waiting at the side of the street. “Here we go.”

  Della picked up the suitcase again, suddenly aware of her boots clicking on the pavement. Pavement!

  She increased her pace and finally reached the carriage, where the driver relieved her of the luggage and handed her up as she climbed in, as if she were a lady or something.

  What would Joseph say? The thought crossed her mind before she could stop it. Her eyes pricked for a moment, but she shook away the emotion and took in the sights, settling into the open-air carriage beside Mrs. Baker. The horse clip-clopped along the road and navigated through traffic.

  How many carriages, buggies, and other forms of transportation snaked along the street right at this moment? She could hardly fathom it. She heard a clanging bell and turned to see a trolley moving along a track, filled with passengers— men, women, and children from many walks of life, mostly those not wealthy enough to hire a carriage. Della imagined herself riding a trolley to visit different parts of the city. It would be such a thrill— much like an old buckboard pulled by a horse, but without the dust cloud, and padded seats instead of a hard, wooden bench.

  Between the carriages, buggies, and the trolleys— a second now approached from the opposite direction— she gaped at the am
ount of traffic and what that said about how many people lived here. Shelley’s biggest road, State Street, never saw this much traffic even during Independence Day parades.

  Shelley’s population could be counted in the hundreds, and its environs in the low thousands. But a single Los Angeles street block could easily hold everyone who lived there.

  She leaned toward Mrs. Baker. “How many people live in Los Angeles?”

  “I think the population is close to two hundred thousand now,” Mrs. Baker said offhand. “It’s always growing, of course. Some say that in another five years, it’ll be well over three hundred thousand.”

  “Goodness,” Della whispered, sitting back against the bench. She tried to picture that many people but failed miserably.

  They passed block after block of city streets. Della looked down each cross street for the brief moment it was visible, trying to commit every detail to memory. The city really did seem to go on forever. Businesses large and small lined the streets— a cobbler, a drug store, a newspaper office. She gazed longingly at the latter, feeling sure that she’d held a paper created in that very building, and now here she was, yards away from where it had been printed.

  They passed several restaurants and diners as well as entertainment venues. Theaters of various kinds: a vaudeville stage and another that showed moving pictures— she simply must see a moving picture soon. Then she spotted a fancy-looking theater advertising a production of Julius Caesar. She searched her mind for the reference and finally remembered— Shakespeare.

  For one of Joseph’s oratory assignments during their school days, he had recited Mark Antony’s speech. She could hear it even now: Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

  Joseph hadn’t enjoyed much about school, preferring to spend a day riding his horse over studying sums memorizing maps. But he had enjoyed learning about history, and Julius Caesar had struck a chord, making him a sudden bookworm for about a year. He’d love to see such a magnificent production of the play.