A smiled twitched at the corner of Cleav's lip. "It wasn't your fault, Esme. I should have imagined those hill boys would have to have a shivaree for us. Truth to tell, I was so busy thinking about the wedding itself, I didn't give the other even a thought."
"I never thought of it, either," she admitted. Then with fury she added, "I swear I'll kill that Armon Hightower next time I see him."
The sincerity of her words struck Cleav as outrageously funny. "I almost pity that poor man," he told her, laughing.
"What are you laughing at? There's not a thing funny about it," she declared.
Cleav shook his head. "Yes, there is, Esme. We are the funny thing about it."
"What do you mean?"
"Every decent hill girl that's ever been married has had a shivaree, Esme," he told her. "Poor old Hightower probably does think of himself as family. Your father thought you should have a real wedding. I guess Hightower wanted to make sure that you did."
Esme looked at him quizzically at first, as if she couldn't quite understand. Finally, she nodded. "You're right," she admitted. "If we hadn't a-been shivareed, folks would always remember it was a hurry-up wedding. Now they'll be talking about you rolling that cask of molasses up the mountain."
The two looked at each other for a moment and then both burst out laughing.
"Was it that funny?" he asked.
"I didn't get to see it," she confessed. "I was tied up with Cambridge's dirty old handkerchief in my mouth."
As the laughter continued, Cleav wrapped his arm around her waist and drew her closer. As he rested her head in the crook of his neck, their laughter began to fade. Tired muscles and foolish embarrassments were forgotten in the still summer quiet of the Tennessee mountains as they sat together for the first time as man and wife. Esme laid one tentative hand against Cleav's chest.
The touch fired Cleav, and he vividly recalled the lusty kiss on the mountain. She was his wife. His brain screamed the words to him joyously. There was no reason in the world for him to wait another minute. "You ready to go to bed?" he asked abruptly.
Esme pulled back, startled. She gave him a frightened look and then swallowed bravely. "Yep," she declared daringly. "I'm ready when you are."
Cleav could hardly hear her for the roaring in his ears. Rising to his feet, he graciously offered her a hand, and she took it.
They moved in silence toward the door, neither having the vaguest idea of what to say. Esme's attention was momentarily drawn to a wadded gunnysack left on the porch.
"Oh, look," she said, pointing to it eagerly.
"What's this?" Cleav's thoughts were already upstairs, and in his mind he was laying Esme across his bed and throwing her skirts up over her head. Glancing inside the bag, he saw worn and faded material. "Somebody's left a ragbag on my porch," he commented distractedly, and as they stepped into the foyer, he moved to throw the gunny and its contents back to the porch.
Esme jerked the sack out of his hand. "That's my things," she explained defensively. "And my dowry."
"Your dowry?" Cleav's brain couldn't quite grasp the word. At that moment, the word he most associated with Esme was not dowry but legs.
Reaching deep inside, Esme pulled out a corner of lacy white cotton that glowed in the moonlight.
"This is my mama's crochet tablecloth. By rights, it should have gone to one of the twins, since they're older. But I thought that since I'm marrying so high, I ought to bring you the best that we own."
"Oh, for heaven's sake." Cleav felt strangely uncomfortable with her confession. He pulled her forcefully into his arms, pressing the hard evidence of his desire into the softness of her stomach. "Give it to one of your sisters. Mother's got dozens of tablecloths."
A cold flash of anger swept through Esme that the warmth of Cleav's embrace could not assuage. As he brought his mouth down to capture hers, Esme struggled against him.
"Your mother doesn't have any tablecloths made by my mother!" Esme told him.
Cleav pulled back slightly and let his thoughts momentarily clear. "You're right, sorry," he answered offhandedly. "Let's forget about tablecloths right now." He pulled her against him and rubbed himself suggestively against her. "We'll just go up to bed and enjoy ourselves. We have a whole lifetime together to argue about unimportant details."
Esme found at that moment that her only desire was to "argue about unimportant details." She was an equal partner in this marriage. Suddenly she was afraid that maybe she wasn't.
"I'll have you know, my mother's tablecloth is very important to me," she stated a bit too loudly. Self-doubt fueled her anger.
"Esme, I didn't mean—"
"My family don't have much and you know that, but what we do have we value!"
