“Wilma!” Confused emotions chased themselves one after another across Ben Malden’s face. He went up to his daughter and kissed her hesitatingly on the forehead.
She threw her arms around him and clung to him happily, too filled with love to say anything. Her body was warm and pulsing against him through the nubby robe, Gently, Ben pushed her away.
“I’ll put up some dinner while you get dressed, sweetheart,” he said. “Then we can talk.”
It was the softest of rebukes, but Wilma was stung by it. However, she obediently did what she was told. When she came down later she wore a sweater and slacks. She and her father sat across from each other and talked all through dinner.
Ben told her the situation in detail. What it added up to was that Continental was trying everything in its power to squeeze him off his land. So far, they’d failed, but now the word was out that some hotshot executive from New York was coming out to force the issue. Ben was really worried.
“Must be a real big shot,” he told Wilma. “The company rented a big house for him and they hired the Henshaws to run it. Now the Henshaws are lookin’ for a maid. Can you imagine—three in help, just to look after two people!”
“Two people?”
“Yep. They say his daughter’s comin’ with him. Another teller, too, but he’ll be puttin’ up at the inn.”
“Big business all right,” Wilma mused.
“Sure ’nuf. These people are from what they call the parent corporation, Universal Enterprises, the outfit what owns Continental. Now how’m I gonna buck an outfit like that?”
“I don’t know, daddy. But don’t worry. We’ll work something out. I’m home now, and I’ll think of something. I won’t let them take your farm away from you.”
Ben Malden looked at his daughter curiously. She’d sure grown up. She’d—hardened. Yes, that was the word. Wilma had grown tougher. Even the way she spoke had a certain sureness in it that seemed to promise she’d let nothing stop her from protecting her father’s interests.
Ben nodded slowly. “I reckon you will come up with somethin’, Wilma. But what?”
“I don’t know yet,” she said. “But don’t worry. I’ll work something out.”
They went to bed soon after that. Ben had to be up early in the, morning to care for his stock. But Wilma lay awake thinking. About an hour after they’d retired she suddenly remembered what her father has said about the Henshaws looking for a maid for those New York people. It gave her an idea. She got up and put on her robe and went to her father’s bedroom to tell him about it. She knocked softly at his door and turned the knob.
It didn’t budge. The door was locked. Wilma sighed and went back to bed.
CHAPTER FIVE
The door to Ben Malden’s room stayed locked. Ben wasn’t taking any chances. His first sight of his daughter in that terry-cloth robe had filled him with unwanted emotion. And it was the kind of emotion he hadn’t the strength to face.
Nor was Wilma ready yet to face what it truly was she wanted from her father. Looking at him across the breakfast table the next morning, she changed her mind about telling him of her idea concerning the Henshaws. He might not understand, might even disapprove, and besides, it was really still quite vague in her own mind.
It became less vague, later that day, when she bumped into Rafe Proctor in the village. “Hey there,” he called from across the street. as she emerged from the drugstore with some purchases. “If it ain’t li’l ol’ Wilma Maiden.” He loped over to her and stood grinning in front of her. “How long you been back, honey?”
“Hello, Rafe. I just got in yesterday. I was beginning to think nobody remembered me. I walked all through this town and you’re the first one to say hello.”
“Shucks, must be ’cause you growed up some an’ you look sorta citified.”
“I guess so.” Wilma looked up at him and thought to herself what a lout he was, what a bumpkin; a living parody of the way some city people visualized country types. “Anyway, it’s nice somebody remembers me,” she added, smiling falsely.
“Ain’t likely I’d forget you, Wilma. Them times out behind your Pa’s barn and all.” He winked lewdly.
“Why, shame on you, Rafe Proctor!” Wilma gave him her most flirtatious, Southern belle look and wagged a finger in his face. “It’s downright naughty of you to remind me of that. After all, we were only children .”
“Best fifteen cents’ worth I ever got,” he flirted back.
“Twenty cents!”
They both laughed.
“Course we’re older now,” Rafe observed, “An’ I reckon the price gone up.”
“But when you’re older, the games get to be so much more fun.” Wilma strained her dimples at him. “Oh! I just realized what you said, Rafe Proctor!” Her hand positively fluttered up to her mouth. “Why, that makes me sound like—I don’t know what!” All I need is a parasol to twirl, and call me Scarlett, Wilma was thinking.
“No ’fense, Wilma. I guess I jes’ got carried away, bein’ so glad to see you an’ all.”
“Well, that’s nice, Rafe. Real nice.” Wilma batted her eyelids at him. “What have you been doing with yourself while I’ve been gone?”
“Nothin’ much, Wilma. I do a job o’ work here an’ there. Not steady, ’counta I values my independence so high. I don’t wanna be beholden to no one man for my bread an’ butter alla the time. So I jes’ work when I feel like it an’ the vittles is runnin’ short. Resta the time I jes’ laze around an’ maybe play a mite. Right now I’m helpin’ the Henshaws get the ol’ Andover house fixed up fer some visitin’ firemen from N’Yawk.”
“The Henshaws, is that right?” Hearing the name from Rafe Proctor laid bare an old polyp of memory somewhere way back in the gray matter of Wilma’s brain. As she prolonged the conversation with him, her mind probed the area like a tongue trying to pinpoint a sore tooth. Then, suddenly, she had it. She interrupted some rambling sentence of Rafe’s, which had obviously been leading up to asking her for a date, and put the hazy recollection to the rest.
“Rafe, do you remember when we were very small and we peeked through the Henshaw’s window one night?”
“We sure was curious li’l hell-raisers, wasn’t we?” He chuckled.
“That’s right, we were. But do you remember what we saw?”
Rafe corrugated his brow to show he was concentrating on remembering. Finally his jaw went slack and his mouth formed an O as it came back to him. “Hey, Wilma, now I do recall. Hell, I reckon I see the Henshaw’s every day since then—least fifteen years back—an’ you know I never give it a thought. It sure was right peculiar, what we see’d peekin’ on them, but I never once thunk on it since. Now ain’t that a caution?”
“Do you suppose they still do what we saw them doing that night, Rafe?”
“Beats me.” Rafe scratched his head. “I don’t think I even now rightly understand jes’ what it was they was doin’.”
“It might be fun to find out—now that we’re older.” Wilma looked at him challengingly.
“You mean go a-peepin’ in their windows agin? Land, Wilma, we too old fer that kinda funnin’ now.”
“You scared?”
“Hell, no! It jes’ seems a mighty silly way to be doin’.”
“I think it would be awfully interesting. But if you’re afraid to, forget it.” Wilma turned on her heel as though to leave him. “Well, good-bye, Rafe,” she said.
“Hold on a minute, Wilma. You ain’t said whether you’d go out with me.”
“I don’t think so, Rafe.” She looked him straight in the eye. “It seems to me as though we don’t share the same tastes anymre.” She kept looking at him, letting it sink in.
“Aww, now that ain’t‘ true, Wilma. Tell you what, you’re so set on it, how about tonight we go peepin’ on the Henshaws an’ then maybe after we could have a few beers an’ get in some dancin’? Whadda you say?”