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Fire exploded in her mouth, burning all the way down to her stomach. She struggled to draw in air, but found her throat paralyzed. And scorching hot.
She tried to speak but could not utter a sound. Thad set his glass on the bench and began to pound her back with the flat of his hand. Finally, she dragged in a lungful of air and tried to form a word. What came out was an odd wheezing sound. Her eyes watered. The inside of her mouth felt raw, and her lips were numb.
“Guess I should have brought you a glass of lemonade instead of whiskey.”
She nodded her head so hard her neck hurt. “Never tasted whiskey before,” she rasped.
“Pa, kin I taste some?”
“Nope. But you can quick bring some lemonade for Leah.”
Teddy raced off to the refreshment table and Thad slid his arm around her shoulders. “I sure am sorry, Leah. Whiskey is strong stuff. Guess it was a bad idea.”
“No,” she said hoarsely. “It was a good idea.” Even with the burning in her throat, she felt like celebrating the closeness she and Thad had shared last night. It would be a precious memory to carry in her heart all the rest of her life.
Teddy returned with the lemonade glass clutched in both hands to avoid spilling, and Thad rescued it from his grasp.
“Isn’t that Edith Ness over there, son?”
Teddy wrinkled up his face. “Dunno. She and Noralee are twins. They look ’xactly the same.”
“You going to ask her to dance?” Thad inquired, his voice casual.
The boy’s shoulders twitched. “Who, me? Why would I wanna do that?”
“It’s called mending fences, Teddy. Patching up a quarrel.”
“I didn’t quarrel with her, Pa. I bashed her on the nose.”
Without a word Thad set off across the floor, threading his way among the whirling couples to where Edith Ness sat on the sidelines with her parents and twin sister.
Teddy gaped after his father. “Pa must be goin’ crazy.”
“Perhaps,” Leah agreed. She watched Thad’s tall figure stride across the noisy room and bend to speak to the young girl in dark braids. The woman sitting beside her, with the same color braids wound in a coil at the base of her neck, must be the girl’s mother. Beside her, sitting stiffly upright, was Verena Forester, an expectant look on her face.
Thad spoke to Mrs. Ness and then offered his hand to the girl.
“Golly,” Teddy whispered. “Why would Pa wanna dance with Edith?”
Leah had a good idea, but she kept it to herself. Unaware of Verena’s unspoken invitation, Thad escorted the girl out onto the floor, and the other couples made room. He positioned Edith’s hands as far up on his arms as she could reach and rested his hands lightly at her waist. They did not dance, exactly, just moved one step in one direction and another step in the opposite direction, rocking back and forth in time to the music.
Leah watched, astounded, as her husband and Edith appeared to be conversing. The girl’s lips were moving, and after a few minutes she tipped her small, pale face up and Thad leaned down and said something.
Instantly Edith looked stricken and she dropped her gaze to her buttoned-up shoes. Thad kept talking, and the two of them kept moving back and forth to the music. Edith’s cheeks reddened and her lips pressed together, and then he bent down again and said something else. This time she nodded and laughed.
Teddy poked Leah’s arm. “What’s Pa talkin’ to her for? She doesn’t know anything. She’s just a dumb girl.”
The fiddle music stopped. Thad escorted Edith back to her mother and started across the floor toward Leah and Teddy again. He was smiling.
Leah touched Teddy’s hunched shoulder. “I suspect that your father has smoothed some ruffled feathers.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind. Here he comes.” She rose to meet him.
“Leah, would you take my whiskey glass over to the bar and see if you can get whoever’s there to refill it? I need to speak to Teddy.”
The bar Thad referred to consisted of two wide planks propped on sawhorses, crammed with all shapes and sizes of bottles, some with labels, some without. Leah wove her way through the crowd and at last reached the short, chunky man posted behind it as bartender. Seth Ruben, she recalled. Darla Weatherby’s brother-in-law. Leah had been introduced to him at the mercantile week before last.
She produced the empty glass and held it out. “Mr. Ruben, could you refill this, please?”
The man’s eyes widened, then narrowed, and a scowl twisted his face. “I could, but I’m not goin’ to. Don’t serve Celestials at this bar.”
Chapter Fifteen
The bartender stared at Leah so long she wondered if a fly was crawling across her nose. Then he drew himself up, puffed his chest out and shook his head.
