“Seen what?” he asked innocently.
“You touching me like that.”
Truth be told, he liked seeing how far she would let him go before that proper lady in her spoke up. He liked being able to affect her, and make her forget where they were. He liked the power of melting the world away from her with a touch.
What fun prey she was.
Burke and Lenny had been talking by the tables, but joined them as Garret was cleaning up the rest of his food. As soon as those two joined them, others began filtering to their table.
He knew most of them from grade school, and the others, at least recognized from the small town. From the familiar way Eliza conversed with them, she must’ve met them earlier today. She had an easy way of making everyone feel included. Maybe that was something they practiced in the city.
Her face was so animated and happy when she spoke. How could he not have noticed before? Probably because she didn’t feel happiness when she talked to him. Regretful. Her mouth was riveting. It was as if time slowed, and he could almost read her plump, pink lips as she spoke to her captive audience.
“Garret. Garret?” Eliza looked at him with worried green eyes, and real time resumed.
“Sorry, what?” he asked. How much of the conversation had he missed in his blasted daydreaming?
Burke waggled his eyebrows at him and grinned. At the moment, Garret wanted to punch the smile off him.
“Miss Mary Beth just asked you how your cattle did in the sale. Twice,” his ranch hand said.
Garret cleared his throat and leaned forward to block Eliza’s profile from his peripheral vision. She was too distracting. “They caught a fair price. Never as much as a man wishes for, but a fair price just the same.”
Mary Beth waited for him to continue, and when he didn’t, tried again. “I heard Mr. Jennings is trying to buy up the Lazy S. Is that true?”
Eliza also waited for his answer, but he didn’t have the knack or patience for small talk the way she seemed to. He wanted to lash out about Jennings and his entire blasted family.
At his hesitation, Eliza stepped in. “Isn’t Mr. Jennings always trying to buy the Lazy S? That man just wants what he cannot have.” The corners of her mouth turned up in a mischievous smile. “Besides, if we sold, what other dusty, cactus-infested ranch would we have to grow old on?”
The amused chuckles from the others settled something defensive inside of him.
Eliza was good. She was really good.
He couldn’t have said it better himself.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Garret and Burke had gone back to work for the rest of the day, and the barn had been almost completely finished by nightfall. It was amazing how fast a building like this could be built when the town pitched in.
She and Lenny had helped load up tables and chairs into wagons, so their new friends would all have less work to do after the dance.
The barn was all lit up with lantern light. It didn’t yet have sliding doors on the sprawling front, so from here she had the perfect line of sight to the fiddler who was tuning his instrument for the dance.
A trill of excitement zinged through her as Lenny grabbed her hand and led her to the barn with a few clusters of other women who had helped load chairs.
When she stepped into the barn, Eliza was overwhelmed by the volume of the mumbled conversation around them. Hay bales were being hauled in, and an entire row of men were sitting up in the loft with their legs dangling down over the barn, passing around a jug of moonshine. Ladies hung in clusters of threes and fours, and the sound of laughter drew a smile from her lips.
Plenty of townspeople looked at her and Lenny, but they seemed to be growing used to them. The few smiles they received from the crowd helped to bolster her confidence. Mr. McDowell, the owner of this property, stood on a platform at the back of the barn and gave his thanks to the townspeople for coming out and lending a hand.
The barn smelled like freshly-cut wood, sawdust, and hay, and the excited crowd murmured and bustled, readying for the dance. Children chased each other through the openings between people, and men hung more lanterns to give relief from the falling darkness. It was organized chaos, and she was happy to be a part of it. She had never been to a dance in the country before.
Garret had been hauling hay bales in for people to sit on, but he straightened his spine when the first note filled the barn. From the way Garret closed his eyes to the first note held on the old fiddle, she imagined it had been a long time since he had been to a dance.
“We need four couples on the dance floor,” the caller yelled out.
The fiddler behind him picked up a fast beat, encouraging the bravest townspeople into the empty middle of the barn. No sooner was the final partner on the floor than the caller, a lanky old man with a bushy gray mustache, was singing out commands to the beat of the fiddle. From the dancers’ baffled laughter and obvious recovery at unexpected calls, the song was an original. The dance was a fast jig with stomping and twirling, and a raucous switching of partners in the middle.
Laughing in delight, Eliza clapped along with the other onlookers. This was all very different indeed from the parties in Boston society. She favored this one over the colorless, proper ones in the city. Oh, to be sure, there were probably politics involved at this dance, but nothing like the head games in Boston ballrooms.