A momentary silence followed. Then Reverend Tewksbury roared with laughter. "Prissy?" he asked, throwing his head back, laughing. "She actually called you prissy to your face?"
"She didn't say I was prissy," he stated firmly. "She thought my manner of speech prissy."
Slapping his thigh with his hand, the reverend actually hooted. "Prissy!" He could barely get the word out. The older man's face was florid, and his eyes had completely disappeared in waves of grinning wrinkles.
The preacher continued to laugh. And laugh. Cleav watched him cackle with growing annoyance.
"There is nothing wrong with Mr. Rhy's speech," Mrs. Tewksbury said, noticing Cleav's disgruntled visage and clearly confused at her husband's sense of humor.
"Of course not," Eula Rhy agreed. "He learned to talk that way in that school in Knoxville. That's just the way a gentleman talks. It isn't really prissy, it just sounds that way."
His mother's feeble defense exasperated Cleav further. Somehow, he'd managed to make himself the butt of his own joke, and for the life of him, he couldn't imagine how it had happened.
Well, of course he knew what had happened. Esme Crabb had happened. That female was enough to give a man the hives. She'd been following him around like a bad reputation for a week. Throwing herself at him like a spinster going for the bridal bouquet, interfering in his work, and exposing him to idle talk around town. Now, finally, when she was nowhere to be seen, he found himself in the awkward situation of defending himself—and her.
"I'm delighted that I'm equally as entertaining to you, Reverend," Cleav said with a discernable edge to his voice.
Reverend Tewksbury might have continued laughing forever but for his wife's timely jab in the ribs. The Rhys were, after all, the most well-to-do family in Vader, and Mrs. Tewksbury had hopes for a match with Cleavis and her daughter.
"Sorry," the preacher told him after a pained grunt and a deadly look from his wife. He tried, without a lot of success, to wipe away his wide grin.
"Now, Cleav," Reverend Tewksbury began, forcing himself into more clergy-like behavior, "I'm sure that it would be a great comfort to your mother if you would just simply tell her that all this talk among the congregation is just that, talk. Just tell us honestly that nothing untoward has occurred between you and that pitiful Crabb girl."
Cleav opened his mouth to do just that.
Unbidden, memories assailed him. Esme's long, slim leg, its soft skin so indecently bared in broad daylight in his store. The sweet, clean smell of her as she sat in his shadow beside the pond. The wild, eager touch of her lips against his own. And the hot, urgent surge of his body pressed so intimately against hers.
As he sat open-mouthed and silent, a damning flush spread across his face and neck.
The bacon poppedand sizzled in the pan as Esme poured the cold cooked beans in on top of the grease.
"I don't know why we have to eat bacon beans when we've got two hams to serve," Adelaide complained.
"Because I'm the one that's cooking!" Esme replied with more than a little snap to her tone. "When you do the cooking, you can eat what you like!"
"Esme don't wanna waste that good ham on me, Sweet-ums," Armon Hightower said, reaching out to grab Adelaide's hand and pull her down to his side. Esme spied him giving her sister a familiar squeeze.
The young, good-looking charmer sat on the Crabbs' kitchen bench, one arm around Adelaide and the other around Agrippa. He squeezed the two girls close, causing both to simultaneously snuggle and giggle.
"You see, little pretties, your sister don't care for me at all," he told the twins, his eyes focused jovially on Esme. "I swear if she got the chance, that gal would bake me up a nice fresh ground-glass pie!"
The girls tittered daintily. Agrippa laid her pretty head against Armon's shoulder.
"Esme just don't know you like we do," she told him in a breathy whisper against his ear.
"And she ain't about to, neither," Armon whispered back, just loud enough for Esme to hear. "But truly, Esme," he said, his bright smile near blinding. "I'm enough man for the whole bunch of you. Ain't no call for jealousy among family."
Esme's grip on the spoon tightened, and she was sorely tempted to turn around and use it to knock some brains into Armon Hightower.
"I know you can't imagine this," Esme told him between clenched teeth. "But I'm not suffering a desperate longing for your company, Armon Hightower."
Armon laughed pleasantly, clearly disbelieving.
"And you'd better watch your hands, mister," she continued sternly. "Pa comes in here, you'll find yourself a married man afore you know what hit you!"
The twins squealed at that and, if humanly possible, actually wiggled closer to the man of their dreams.
Armon paled slightly and actually did readjust the location of his left hand from the fleshy curve of Adelaide's hip to the less dangerous tuck of her waist.
