“He’ll talk your ear off,” Carla warned Anne. “When you’ve had enough, just call out for Jake.”
“We’re going to talk about our divorce,” Reed informed his wife.
“Yeah, yeah. You’ve been promising me that for eighteen years.” Carla handed her husband her plate and went to retrieve a sprawling six-year-old from the top of the bookcase. Carla then reclaimed her own dinner and wandered among guests, a bright red bird with ceaseless energy.
“I love that woman,” Reed informed Anne.
Anne chuckled as she speared a forkful of food. “Have you two always lived here?”
“Our families have been here four generations. Always the silver… Once it gets in your blood, it’s damn hard to get it out.” He gestured in Jake’s general direction. “He’s the exception to the rule. Most times we’re friendly people here, but to have someone new arrive and try to settle down as one of us…” He shook his head. “Just doesn’t happen. He’s nothing like the rest of us, but he still fits in, if you get my meaning. You going to marry him?”
“Mmm,” Anne said expressively-savoring the taste of the ham.
Reed nodded to his eldest son, who filled Anne’s glass yet another time with Carla’s delightful punch. The room grew increasingly warm; Anne grew increasingly thirsty. Talk finally turned to mining. Anne had the feeling that was inevitable. She settled back next to her host once she’d finished her dinner.
This mine was open; that one just closed; Harvey had been hurt; there had been an explosion and a fire… Anne listened, feeling like a foreigner trying to absorb the flavor of their lives. The men lived with real danger day by day in the mines. There was always the chance that a mine would close when the economy shifted or a vein ran out. No one ever considered leaving, though. Even Harvey, who’d been hurt, would stay in the mining community; they would care for him until he was well enough to get a job. These people cared for their own, and had for generations. Their loyalty to one another touched her heart.
Reed kept reaching over to pat her knee. You’re accepted, said the gesture. He delivered the same proprietary pat periodically to the fanny of his passing six-year-old. The thought made her unexpectedly feel like giggling. Jake had been engrossed for the hour and a half since dinner in a conversation with three men, but he shot her an occasional glance. Are you still doing all right? Certainly, certainly, certainly. She felt like laughing again.
“You sure can hold your wine, can’t you, sweetheart?” Reed patted her knee yet another time. “I respect a woman who can hold her liquor.”
“Me, too,” Anne answered blankly, wondering what on earth he was talking about. She hadn’t drunk anything but cherry punch…but even as a sudden, alarming thought registered, Reed’s eldest son was in front of her again, filling her glass to the brim and sending her a twinkling grin. She made a hurried attempt to count exactly how many times she’d seen that twinkling grin…when a hiccup erupted from her throat. Anne turned tomato-red.
“I should have known any woman of Jake’s could drink ’em under the table,” Reed roared in approval.
“Enough of this mining talk. Music, everybody. You have any favorite songs, darlin’?”
“Thousands,” Anne agreed brightly. She loved music. From across the room, Jake’s pewter-colored eyes suddenly came into focus. He looked distressed. Distressed? She waved a vague reassurance in his direction.
“Rafe and Benjy!” Two men got up to take their fiddles from their cases, with laughter and clapping approval from the rest. “Stand up, honey,” Reed ordered her.
Anne obediently stood, for the first time in two hours. Jake’s face went out of focus, but that really didn’t matter. Everyone was laughing. Laughing and happy. The fiddlers’ bows were dancing lightly over the strings.
“You first, darlin’. What do you want to sing?” Reed asked her.
The question made no sense. Anne cleared her throat. “Not sure I understand,” she admitted happily.
“We play Round the Horn. All of us get a chance to sing our favorite tune. Doesn’t matter what kind of music you like-anything goes. Here, honey.” Reed handed her another full glass of Carla’s delightfully refreshing cherry punch.
Jake was suddenly, miraculously by her side, apparently having traveled at the speed of light. He intercepted the glass. Anne looked at him in surprise, took her punch back and leaned contentedly against his shoulder. “Jake wants to sing first,” she told Reed, and took another sip of the homemade nectar. Was she really going to have to sing in front of all these people? Normally, the thought would have struck an appalling note of panic in her. Regardless, she was certainly in a mood to hear everyone else. Especially Jake. He was handsome as the very devil, an oddly watchful spark in his eyes for Anne as he took up the challenge, clearly having been through this before.
Leaning back against the edge of the couch, he took Anne with him; an iron hand crept around her waist. Which was nice, because her knees suddenly felt like Jell-O, and being locked between his thighs was not unpleasant. She took just one more sip from her glass before he started to sing. She seemed to have been dying of thirst all evening. In the meantime, Jake’s first song fell flat. “Violets for Her Furs,” an old jazz melody. It failed because no one else could conceivably know the connotation but Anne, and secondly because Jake, sad but true, was tone-deaf. His second song enjoyed a better reception.
It was “She’ll Be Coming ’Round the Mountain When She Comes,” except that Jake’s verse had nothing to do with chicken ’n’ dumplings. “She’ll be teasing up a tempest when she comes” was how it started-and it deteriorated drastically from there.
These people liked their songs ribald. Lord, they went crazy, stomping their feet and laughing. They were really a hard-drinking bunch, Anne thought vaguely, although Jake, behind her, was still nursing the beer he’d started out with. The man to the left of Jake sang a mountain tune about a nubile young lass. The lyrics turned his wife’s ears red; but then, she certainly had a song to match his for lewdness. Carla, the sweet homemaker, came up with a Western melody about cowboys and what they did on lonely nights. As each person took a turn, the tunes grew even lustier. The fiddles had everyone’s feet stomping.
One by one, around the circle of the room, all of the guests offered songs. Anne’s cheeks were flushed from laughter and heat when Reed thumped her shoulder. “Your turn, darlin’.”
With her limbs sheer liquid, Anne was not about to spoil the party. But what song did she know of that nature? She handed Jake her empty glass, ignoring the message he was trying to send her with his eyes. She certainly had no intention of letting him down. The old fear that she could never fit into Jake’s life… Well, one could get tired of being pegged as inhibited and proper.
This was her chance to change her image. Confidently, she delivered a throaty, sexy rendition of a bawdy old Bessie Smith song.
“Keep on truckin’, Mama. Trucking all the whole day long…”
Anne threw one hip west, caught in Jake’s palm.
“She’s the best truck driver this side of town…”
She threw the other hip east, crashing again into Jake’s opposite palm before she could accomplish the bump-and-grind action she had in mind. She delivered the rest of the song in a breathy roar.
“…’Cause she does her truckin’ from the hips on down. Keep on truckin’, Mama, truckin’ all your cares away…”
They definitely liked the chorus. Anne was envisioning a singing career, her cheek molded to Jake’s shirt. Bessie Smith hadn’t been the only one who could belt out a song. Her limp arm extended, Anne accepted pumping handshake after handshake, as Jake moved with her toward the front door. He had one arm tucked under her knees and the other around her waist. Being carried certainly beat walking.