Heart and Home(16)

       
           



       

If he hadn't spent so much time with Jane, he 'wouldn't be thinking that  Doreena's conversation always centered on herself, that her laugh was  not quite natural and that she was. always aware of someone watching  her, and acted accordingly.

He loved Doreena. He had told her so. She was the most beautiful woman  he had ever seen. She had agreed to marry him in spite of her parents'  misgivings. He had no intentions of betraying her.

And wasn't comparing her to Jane a form of betrayal? It had to stop. In  last night's letter he had asked Doreena to join him-begged her,  actually, as Jane had suggested. What he should do, he decided, was  picture Doreena at his side every moment he was with Jane.

With that new theory to test, he walked to the boardinghouse and up the  steps. It would be easier to picture Doreena here than in his own house,  anyway.

Yes, Doreena would like this house, he thought as he came through the  front door. She would like the long open stairway. He could imagine her  making a graceful descent as guests waited in the parlor below.

At that moment Jane, her arms wrapped around a huge bundle of bedding,  started down the stairs. She was peering around her burden when she saw  him and jumped. Afraid she was about to lose her balance, Adam dashed up  the steps to catch her. With an arm around her waist he helped her to  the bottom.

"Thanks." She sounded slightly breathless. She had taken more of a scare than he'd realized.

"You ought to throw the bedding over the railing instead of trying to carry it down the stairs."

"I know," she said, walking toward the kitchen. "I forgot to move the  hall table, though, and I was afraid of knocking over the vase."

Adam followed her, noting the delicate vase of violets as he went by.  Would Doreena have thought of the vase? He had trouble picturing her  carrying bedding at all. Which wasn't fair. Doreena wasn't going to be  running a boardinghouse, he reminded himself.

"Did I see Rose and Rosetta leave your house a moment ago?" Jane asked over her shoulder.

"That's right," he said, following her through her kitchen and into the  backyard. Jane dropped the bedding on the ground and separated a sheet,  which she shoved into a huge tub of soapy water. More snowwhite sheets  snapped in the breeze behind her.

"Did Rosetta catch something from Rosalie?"

"Not exactly." He tried to imagine Doreena standing beside him watching Jane do her laundry. It wasn't easy.

"Not exactly?" Jane straightened and started the sheet through a ringer attached to the tub.

He stepped forward to turn the crank. He couldn't stand by and watch her  do it all herself. "Watch your fingers. No, actually, neither girl has  anything catching. Just a mother a little overanxious to see them  married."

When Jane looked up, she was chewing on her lip.

"Go ahead and laugh. I would, too, if they didn't scare me so much."  Once he heard her laugh he couldn't stop his own. "How many more are  there, anyway?"

"Just one. She might be able to give Nedra and Naomi some serious competition."

"Very funny."

She dropped the sheet into a tub of clear water. "I thought so," she  said. "Her name's Rosemary and I guarantee you'll like her."

Adam groaned. This was a conversation he was supposed to imagine Doreena  listening to? Jane continued to wash sheets and pillowcases and he  continued to help where he could, becoming more and more conscious that  this was not what he should be doing.

It wasn't the laundry that bothered him. He'd rather be helping with  someone else's work than doing nothing. What he shouldn't be doing was  enjoying Jane's company. He needed to put Doreena firmly between them  and keep her there.

"Doreena will really love your house," he said, looking up at the high  windows and steep roof. Even from the backyard it was pretty.

"Thanks," she said. "Grams fell in love with it the first time she saw it"

"Not you?"

Jane shook her head. "I wanted to go home."

"Home was better than this?"

She laughed. "No. Home was a falling-down shack in the worst part of  town. We took in boarders there, too, to make ends meet. But home was  familiar."                       
       
           



       

"Well, Doreena will be jealous," he said, coming back to his point. "She's used to better than the little house I'm renting."

Jane fished a sheet out of the rinse water and sent it through the  ringer again. "She won't care about the house," she said, smiling at him  as she caught the wet sheet in the basket.

Adam followed her to the clothesline and helped her spread the sheet  over it. The wire sagged from the weight, making it possible for him to  see Jane over it. "What makes you think she won't care about the house?"

"She won't if she loves you."

Her eyes had locked with his, and he was struck by how pretty she was,  with her big brown eyes so warm, her lips parted in a gentle smile.  Gradually her eyes widened and the smile faded. He was touched by how  vulnerable she looked in the instant before she turned away.

At that same instant he wanted to swear. Doreena wasn't between them as  firmly as he had hoped, even when they were talking about her. But the  sheet was. It flipped up and slapped at him, making him back away. He  watched Jane from a distance for a moment, feeling a need to apologize  but unsure for what.

"I ought to get back," he said, finally. "I forgot to put the note on the door."

She turned and smiled. "See you at dinner, then."

After the easy dismissal, he walked across her yard and his and entered  through his back door. For some odd reason he couldn't imagine Doreena  following him.





Jane watched Adam leave and let the forced smile fade. If she believed  her grandmother, which she thought she did, she should be warning  Doreena away, not feeling jealous. More evidence that she wasn't  thinking clearly.

But how could she when he looked at her the way he had? And what had he  read in her face? Her weakness wasn't her loneliness. Her weakness was  Adam Hart. And it was possible that he knew it.

Over the next several days, Jane threw herself into her housecleaning.  Adam sat next to her at meals twice a day but he never stayed to help.  She made sure of that. When he offered, she told him she had some other  task she needed to do before she started the dishes. Eventually, he quit  offering.

After a few cold days that changed the leaves to gold and brown, the  weather turned warm again, making it possible for Jane to continue  airing out curtains and bedding.

Adam was seeing more patients now, she noticed. Not that she was  watching his house. He lived right next door. She couldn't help but  notice.

He stopped by nearly every day with questions about one family or  another, sometimes because they were patients, but usually because they  had asked to be considered as homes for the orphans. Jane was always  busy with the cleaning, and he always pitched in for a few minutes.

Since the school term wouldn't start until November, Jane still had an  occasional small visitor. Suzy Gibbons skipped in during one of Adam's  visits. Jane was on a ladder removing the parlor curtains, and Adam was  trying to convince her to let him take her place.

"Whatcha doin', Aunt Jane?" queried the youngster.

"Aunt Jane is trying to break her neck," Adam answered.

"Why you wanna break your neck?"

"Adam," Jane scolded, forgetting for a moment that she should speak to him no more than necessary, "don't lie to little girls."

She tried to ignore Adam's laugh as she released the rod from its  bracket and let the curtains fall to the floor. "I need to clean-the  curtains," she said as she backed down the ladder.

"Did you get jelly on 'em?"

There was Adam's laugh again. "No, they're just dusty," she answered, trying to ignore him completely.

Suzy scowled at the curtains, then shrugged off the dust as unimportant.  "I came to see if you had any cookies. Mama didn't make any 'cause I  was bad, so I'm running away."

Jane responded as casually as she could, "This is the third time, isn't it?"

Suzy pinched her eyes closed and scratched the end of her tiny nose. She  raised the fingers of her other hand to keep count. "There was the  jelly on the curtains, the torn dress, the broken egg. and this time."  She opened her eyes to look at her fingers. "Four."                       
       
           



       

Jane tried to keep her voice stern. "And this time was … ?"

Suzy's brow furrowed. "This time was nothin'!"