her action and took two steps backward, away from her. The simple, nonthreatening action slowed her racing heart.
She swallowed and forced herself to look up at him. “I’m sorry. It’s just that when I...when I saw you standing there with your hands on the door frame just...looking at me, I just... I saw...”
Ace didn’t say anything for several seconds. Then, to her surprise, he went to the doorway and stood in the same pose that had caused her such alarm.
“Look at me, Meg,” he said in that deep voice. “Who do you see?”
“What?” She frowned, unsure of what he was doing and wondering at the sorrow reflected in his eyes.
“Who do you see standing here?”
What did he want from her? she wondered in confusion. “I see you,” she said at last. “Ace Allen.”
“Exactly. You see the mixed-breed ex-convict who killed two men. I’ll always be sorry for that, but if you never believe anything else about me, you can believe that I would never deliberately harm a hair on your head.”
His statement was much the same as what he’d said the day before in the woods. It seemed he was determined that she knew he was no threat to her.
“You’re wrong,” she told him.
His dark eyebrows snapped together in a frown. “What?”
“What you said. I didn’t see th-that at all.” She hurried to explain. “Elton used to stand in the doorway like that a lot. For just a moment when I looked up I saw him, not you. I...I’m s-sorry.”
“I’m not Elton, Meg.”
His voice held an urgency she didn’t understand. “I know that.”
“Do you?” he persisted. “Look at me. Do I look like Elton?”
“No,” she murmured. Elton hadn’t been nearly as tall, and unlike Ace he’d been almost too good-looking to be masculine. She’d once heard him called pretty. No one would ever think of Ace Allen as pretty. Striking, surely. Magnificent, maybe. Pretty, never.
“No, and I don’t act like him. Can you see that? Do you believe it?”
Still confused, but knowing somehow that her answer was of utmost importance, she whispered, “Yes.”
He nodded, and the torment in his eyes faded. “You have nothing to be sorry for, Meg Thomerson. That’s something else you can be certain of, so never think it again.” With that, he turned and left her alone with her thoughts and a lot of questions.
* * *
After a lunch of cheese-and-tomato sandwiches that Meg fixed while Ace and Nita finished the laundry, they took up the sheets and tablecloths that had been drying on nearby bushes and replaced them with those they’d just starched. The tea towels were spread on the grass to dry, and the tablecloths and sheets were sprinkled with water and rolled up until it was time for them to be ironed.
With three people, they finished the laundry in less than half the time it would have taken Meg working alone. Ace used the soapy water to scrub the back porch, watered the thirsty plants with the rinse water and turned the tubs upside down until they were needed again.
As she dampened and rolled up the starched linens, Meg sneaked glances of him through the open window. He worked with an economy of movement and an easy grace that was unexpected in a man his size. She tried to imagine Elton offering to do the wash while she recuperated from an illness and almost laughed aloud.
When he finished, Ace took his rifle and ax and went to chop down a few more trees. Nita and Meg set up both ironing boards and started the ironing, even though they knew there was no way they would finish until the following day. Still, it felt good to do something productive, to know that she’d taken another step toward healing herself both physically and mentally. A rush of hope suffused her.
She’d never minded ironing. It had always been a time for her to think through her problems and make plans for the future. Nita, too, worked mostly in quiet, but with the older woman standing just a few feet from her, Meg felt compelled to make some conversation. At the same time, she was at a loss for something to say.
She wasn’t really shy, but Elton’s daily activities hadn’t been the sort a man wanted to discuss with his wife when he came home at day’s end, and talking to two small children made conversations a bit one-sided and not very stimulating. The only time she had an opportunity to talk to fellow grown-ups was when she went to town, and those exchanges were usually confined to questions about how she and the kids were doing or to discuss when she would return with the clean laundry.
Her world was so confined and her learning so limited that she felt incapable of holding up her side of a conversation. Everyone she knew, including Ace, was more knowledgeable than she would ever be on any range of topics.
“Ace says you need a real clothesline for the amount of washing you’re doing.”
The statement pulled Meg from the web of her thoughts. She glanced up from the tablecloth she was ironing. A clothesline? Now, wouldn’t that be wonderful? It was something she’d often dreamed of having, but never supposed she would.
“Maybe someday when I get some of my doctor bills caught up,” she said.
Nita nodded. “What else should he do to get you ready for the winter?”
Winter. How she dreaded its arrival! It was miserable working over the boiling kettles in the summertime and keeping the inside fire going for the irons, but at least the clothes dried in a hurry.
Though the southwest Arkansas winters were usually milder and shorter in duration than many places, winter often brought a whole new set of problems and its own share of misery. Cold rain. Sometimes sleet and ice, and even the occasional snowfall. No matter how hot the fires, it was still frigid work, and often days passed when it was so nasty and wet she couldn’t possibly do any laundry.
“I’m sure there are a lot of things that need doing, but I hadn’t given it much thought,” she said after a moment.
“And no wonder,” Nita said with a gentle smile. “You’ve been through a lot. Thank goodness there’s still time to get things when he finishes getting the wood put by.”
“Shouldn’t he be...working somewhere else or doing things for you?” Meg asked, frowning at her companion.
“Ace is real smart and got a good education, but he doesn’t do well working for other people. Says it stifles him. Nate Haversham offered him a job at the bank, but Ace says he’s not cut out for suits and ties or being in a cage all day.”
Meg was amazed. Ace had turned down a good-paying job at the bank so he could hunt and trap? Why would anyone do something like that, especially when he had an education? Before she could bridle her tongue, she’d asked Nita that very question.
“It is strange, I know, but he says he’s happier outside hunting and trapping and such. He tans the hides to sell.”
“Is there enough money in that to take care of things?”
“Depending on the hide, they’ll bring from twenty-five
