"I hope she tires of it before she makes us the talk of the town!"
Cleav hoped the same.
As customary, he gathered the fish food from the meat house, deliberately trying to quiet thoughts of Esme Crabb. If he had to put up with her unsettling presence across the room from him all morning, surely he earned the privilege of not thinking of her at all in the afternoon.
Feeding the brood fish, Cleav had just finished with the females and had moved upstream to the pond of smaller, more active males. The boys were swirling excitedly in anticipation of the feast when a movement to the left caught Cleav's attention. No.
Leaning up against the juniper tree, Esme Crabb was bent forward, casually adjusting her stocking.
"Would you stop that!" Cleav's voice cracked through the quiet droning of the bees and distant call of birds to startle Esme.
She jumped, dropping her skirt hastily.
"You scared me!" she complained, placing a hand just below her throat.
"Well, something ought to. You shouldn't be pulling your dress up like that in broad daylight!" Cleav shot back.
"No one's around," Esme said with conviction.
"I am around!" Cleav's anger was unmistakable.
"Yeah," Esme said with a naughty grin. "But you've already seen my legs."
Cleav paled. Glancing guiltily toward the surrounding hills, he jumped to his feet and hurried toward her. "Are you out of your mind?" he asked in a furious whisper. "If someone heard you, there is no telling what they would think."
Esme cocked a hip and set a fist obstinately against it. "I know exactly what they'd think," she said. "They'd think you'd already seen my legs, which you have. And I don't believe for a minute that you think they are as skinny as you let on. You liked 'em plenty well enough. You was near drooling like a starving man at a box supper."
Cleav stood speechless before her for a moment. Then he closed his eyes in a silent prayer for patience. "Miss Esme, I am sure that you are as aware as I of the indecency of this conversation."
"It's a private conversation," Esme answered him. "There ain't no use us pretending we don't know what's happening between us."
Cleav took a step backward and then spread his hands in a hasty gesture as if to wipe clean an invisible slate. "There is nothing happening between us, Miss Crabb," he said emphatically. "Absolutely nothing."
He turned from her. Why had he thought this young woman bright? She was proving to be the most thick-headed female he had ever encountered. He would simply walk away from this woman and ignore her completely in the future.
"You call that kiss you gave me nothing?"
Cleav spun around, his mouth opened in shock. "I never kissed you!"
"Did so!" she claimed obstinately. "Right here on this very spot one week ago today! Two people with their mouths together are kissing," Esme said with pretense of grand sophistication. "It makes no difference who starts it."
"It makes a world of difference!" Cleav shot back. "At least, it does to me. You can't just throw yourself against me and claim you've been kissed. Believe me, when I kiss you, you will know it."
"You are planning to kiss me then?" Esme was all smiles, obviously delighted.
"No! I never said that!"
"I heard you with my own ears."
"I never stated any such intention."
"You said 'when,' and when means something that's sure to happen," Esme argued with the sound logic of one who usually wins such discussions.
Cleav looked directly into her eyes. "I plan to see to it that it doesn't."
"Why?" Esme asked, genuinely aggrieved.
"Why what?"
