Vows by Lavyrle Spencer

porch swing or in her bedroom, or coming here to the livery stable and flinging her body about as if in near-despair, waxing melodramatic about how lonely life would be at fifty when she was a childless, gray-haired spinster living alone sewing gloves. It wasn't Tarsy's fault she was born needing constant compliments in order to be happy. Or that she'd been endowed with a bent toward melodrama. Emily found both traits amusing and irritating, by turns, especially in light of Tarsy's ability to charm men. For Tarsy, too, had fifty eyelashes for every one of Jerome Berryman's, and poor Jerome was smitten with each one of hers, as were several other local swains. She had reams of bouncing blond hair, a beautiful heart-shaped face high-lighted by her abundantly fringed brown eyes, tiny bones, and a nearly nonexistent waist that drew second glances like a field of blooming buckwheat draws honeybees.
      But, as always, she wanted one more bee.
      "Emily, tell me about him anyway, pleeze ."
      "I don't know much except that he's staying and I'm not too happy about it. He's already seen Loucks about buying property and he intends to build a livery stable and go into competition with Papa."
      Tarsy came out of her self-absorption long enough to cover her lips in dismay. "Oh, dear."
      "Yes. Oh, dear."
      "Whatever is your papa going to do?"
      "What can we do? It's a free country, he says."
      "You mean he isn't upset?"
      "I'm the one who's upset!" Emily finished doctoring Sergeant, stood, and wiped her hands agitatedly. "Papa's got enough to worry about with Mama getting worse. And now this." She related what had transpired the previous day, ending, "So if you hear where he intends to put up his livery stable, I'd appreciate your letting us know."
      But before the day was out Emily learned for herself. She was in the office studying, sitting Indian-fashion on the cot with her shoulders curled against the wall, one hand on the sleeping cat and a book in her lap, when Jeffcoat himself appeared in the doorway.
      She glanced up and her eyes iced over.
      "Oh, it's you."
      "Good afternoon, Miss Walcott." He surveyed her unladylike pose while she defiantly refused to alter it on his behalf. A grin unbalanced his mouth as he tipped his hat, and she cursed Tarsy for being right: he did have a dimple in his left cheek and his eyelashes were devilishly thick and long, and he had a disarmingly attractive mouth. And dressed in the same shirt with the missing sleeves, his bulging biceps were as conspicuous as the spine of the Big Horns. But she sensed a cockiness in his unconventional attire, a flaunting of masculinity to which a gentleman would not stoop: his tall black boots led to high-waisted black britches with bright red suspenders that looked quite superfluous on pants that tight. But above all he flaunted those muscular arms, framed by the threads of blue chambray where the sleeve had been chewed off at the armhole. Oh, and didn't he know how to pose the whole collection to best advantage, standing with feet wide-spread, hands hooked at his waist, as if to say, take a look, lady.
      "What do you want?" she demanded rudely.
      "My horses. I'll need them for a few hours."
      Emily flopped her book facedown, sending the cat bounding away. She bounced off the cot and strode for the door at full steam, refusing to excuse herself as she forced Jeffcoat to jump back or be flattened. He jumped. Then whistled as if singed and ambled farther into the empty office to glance amusedly at the cover of her book. The Science of Veterinary Medicine by R. C. Barnum. The amusement left his face, replaced by interest as he turned the volume over, cocked his head, and perused the header on the open page: "Diseases of the Generative Organs of Both the Horse and Mare." His eyes wandered across the cot, across the rag rug, which still held a depression from her rump, to a sheaf of papers that had been at her knee. With a single finger he