Jack burned--every inch of her, every blood vessel and capillary, from her head to her toes--as she entered the church with her arm in Donovan's. The people of Irvington flocked to the doors of the church, the windows lit by candles. Everyone wore their Sunday best--fine lace dresses, silk jackets, feathered hats, strings of pearls. Jack in her mended blue satin felt entirely lackluster next to the finery, but despite her less than attractive attire, she and Donovan still attracted the attention of the entire crowd.
She lifted her chin under the judgmental gazes; she would not give them any satisfaction. Jack was proud to be seen with Donovan, and their night would not be ruined by malicious spectators. Donovan must have noticed the change in her countenance as they exited his car and walked towards the door of the church because he smiled down at her, his eyes sharp in the candle light. His smooth black hair was tied into a tail down his back, swept away from the high cheekbones and long jaw.
"Thanks for inviting me, Jack," he said, his voice sonorous amidst the chatter.
Jack wanted to tell him it was casual, that he was really the only fellow she knew to invite, but her tongue felt tied in knots because that wasn't the truth. She had wanted him as her companion, and being on his arm thrilled her.
"I'm glad you came," she said with a smile. "If only to keep me from falling on my face and ruining my spotless reputation."
Donovan laughed and pulled her closer to him, and Jack remembered the way he had danced, fluid and graceful and athletic while she had tripped over her own two feet, wrecking the dance exhibition more than once. She had resigned herself to practicing the steps while she fed the chickens just to ensure she would not ruin the sample dance in front of the whole town.
"You and the other girls have done a fine thing here," Donovan said as they joined the queue to enter the church. "The coffers will overflow with support for the troops."
"Just doing my patriotic duty," Jack said, contemplating whether she should have brought the shawl she knitted in red, white, and blue.
Donovan's statement was true, however--the Ragtime dance had attracted nearly everyone in Irvington and Jack watched Corrie's and Hannah's beaming faces at the door as they accepted donations of food and war bond purchases. Yes, the Ragtime dance was a success.
By the time Donovan and Jack reached the door, the church was bustling with activity and the Ragtime quartet's syncopated rhythm drifted through the door. The room was muggy with the heat of so many bodies crammed into such a small space and Reverend Smalley was opening the tall windows with their black shutters.
"Aunt Jack, welcome!" Corrie said when she caught sight of her aunt and the two women embraced. "You look beautiful!"
Jack flushed and tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear. "Hello, Corrie. How can I help? You know I can't stand to sit around and gab like some old hen."
"Will you check that the quartet knows the very first song? We'll begin the exhibition dance once everyone has come inside. And please make sure Christina hasn't become too fatigued."
Jack scanned the room for her younger niece and found the dark-haired beauty sitting by the quartet, greeting the attendees. The soldiers from the hospital who were well enough to travel gathered around her, lounging on cots brought over from the doctor's practice.
"I'll scare off those lovesick soldier boys, don't you worry."
"Hello, Donovan," Corrie said, and Jack recognized the concerned creases around Corrie's eyes as she offered a shallow curtsy. Though Donovan had proven himself to be in every respect a gentleman, Corrie was still hesitant to accept him and Jack hoped it was only out of maternal protectiveness for her aunt.
"Mrs. Benjamin, a pleasure," he said, offering a neat bow. "Thank you for including me in your invitation."
"Of course. Any friend of Jack's is a friend of mine," Corrie said, and Jack felt pride blossom in her chest at Corrie's accepting smile.
"Let's go check on Christina," Jack said, tugging on Donovan's arm.
As Jack pulled him behind her, the crowd split in half to permit them through like Moses parting the Red Sea. She heard muffled criticisms and the wave of gossip about "Jack's Indian" and she resisted the urge to tell them exactly what she thought of their comments. When one woman voiced her opinion a little too loudly, using words like "savage" and "heathen," Jack's entire body bristled and she stopped in her tracks, her back straightened.
Donovan reached for her hand and squeezed it. He bent so his mouth was by her ear and whispered, "Don't bother, Jack. They're not worth it."
Jack looked up at him and wondered how he could be so calm in the face of such prejudice. "Doesn't it--don't they make you livid?" Jack hissed under her breath, her skin prickling with rage.
Donovan sighed as an aged weariness seeped into his expression. "I can't escape it, Jack. No matter where I go, no matter what I do. I can only be the best man possible and live beyond reproach."
Jack scowled--his answer may be ethical, but it had to be infuriating to live with the sharp words. "Don't you just want to punch someone in the face? I don't know how you deal with it."
He smiled down at her, his lips parting. "I think you may be angrier than I am, Jack. Come on, let's enjoy your party and not worry about shallow-minded fools."
"Fine," Jack said with a sigh, the ire fading from her body as she caught sight of Christina, her eyes closed as she listened to the strings playing the Ragtime ditty. "Hello, Christina! How are you feeling?"
Christina's eyes fluttered open at her aunt's approach, her skin paler than usual. "Oh, hello, Aunt Jack."
"Are you alright?" Jack asked, forcing space for herself on a cot by Christina's chair while Donovan stood and looked on.
"Quite," Christina said, and Jack noticed then the letter clutched in her wraithlike fingers.
"Why, David's letter! I plumb forgot," Jack said, forgetting the letter from Christina's beau she'd delivered to the Walker home a few days before. "How is he?"
"He's well, I think," Christina said. "He's alive at least and uninjured, which is more than can be said for so many of our boys."
"They'll come home soon," Jack assured her, taking her niece's icy hand and squeezing it in her own. "The war will end, and David will come home."
Christina raised her green eyes to Jack, full of doubt and despair and longing. "Will he, Jack?"
Emotion rose in her throat and Jack squeezed the girl's hand. Of course, she could make no promises. Perhaps David would return from war unscathed, but even if he had no visible injuries, what could be said of the state of his spirits or his mind? No, Jack could make no promises to Christina though she wished she could promise her every happiness.
Clapping at the front of the room attracted Jack's attention and she turned to find Hannah, attired in a shimmering purple tafetta dress, capturing everyone's attention. The crowd took a few minutes to settle down and Jack rose to stand next to Donovan whose eyes were on her rather than on Hannah and her announcement.
"What?" she whispered, wondering if she'd somehow managed to ruin her nicest dress with chicken poop again.
A smile was faint on his lips as he watched her, coffee eyes swirling. "You're a soft-hearted woman, Jack Harrison, despite your tough demeanor."
The noise of the room--Hannah's announcement, the warm chatter and click of shoes--faded away as he said those words and Jack's face blushed. Soft-hearted? Who does he think I am? But for all Jack's pretense, Donovan was right. Though Jack had a carefully preserved veneer that was tough and hardened, she cared deeply about those she loved and it amazed her that Donovan already saw that in her despite their short acquaintance.
"Shh, don't tell anyone," she whispered as Hannah continued to speak, giving Donovan a wink. "You'll give me away, and I have a reputation to maintain."
Donovan repressed a laugh, his shoulders shaking in merriment, and Jack forced herself to look to Hannah to keep from indulging in a chuckle herself. Hannah had welcomed the town, and now she gestured to Corrie and her husband as well as Donovan and Jack to come to the front for their sample dance.
Titus joined Hannah, making a good show of the dance despite his prosthetic leg, and Dr. Benjamin swept his wife to the front with an arm around her slender waist. Donovan proffered his hand to Jack and she took it, letting him pull her to the front of the church where they would dance about the pulpit as the quartet played.
"Please observe this exhibition of the modern Ragtime dance, and then for the next song, join us!" Hannah announced, her cheery voice audible above the chatter.
The quartet started to play and the lively music drowned out the chatter as the crowd watched the three couples expectantly. Donovan smiled down at Jack and cocked one eyebrow. "Are you ready, Miss Jack?"
"Ready as I'll ever be," she answered as his arm slid around her waist and he secured her to his chest.
Again, Jack burned, but it wasn't the same sort of fire she'd felt under the eyes of the town. This was a burning that started in her bones as her skin came alive everywhere he touched her, prickling with anticipation. Her right hand took his left and she rested her free hand on his bicep as the dance began with the easy one-step. Jack studied her feet as they danced to make sure she wouldn't trip over herself, but she was soon distracted by Donovan's easy grace, moving through the steps with a natural fluidity Jack did not possess.
"Don't look at your feet," Donovan whispered. "Look at me."
Jack did, and that disconcerted even more. Though she'd scarcely admitted it, Jack thought Donovan was one of the most handsome men she'd ever met, not to mention the most interesting. His eyes were warm pools of feeling and a smile played at his lips. Drat. I'm going to forget all the steps.
But for a moment, she forgot she was in the middle of a dance floor in a church. Instead, she was only a girl alone with a tall, handsome fellow with burning eyes. Then Donovan's eyes caught on something behind her and broke from her gaze, and that was all it took to distract Jack from the intricate footwork of the dance. She tripped over her own two feet, her ankle twisting as she fell, and Donovan barely noticed in time to catch her before she tumbled to the floor.
"Jack, I'm sorry!" he said, supporting her against him.
Jack gasped in pain when she tried to put weight on her ankle again--it was twisted, and worse than she'd imagined. "Jumping Jehoshaphat. I--I'm afraid I'm hurt."
Corrie and Dr. Benjamin and Titus and Hannah danced around them, but Jack could not go on. Pain shot from her ankle up her leg, erupting in every nerve, and though Jack liked to consider herself impervious to pain, she knew she could not dance with such an injury.
Donovan touched the small of her back, concern and regret etched across his face. "I'm so sorry, Jack. Shall we sit down? Get some fresh air perhaps?"
As Donovan helped Jack to limp to the nearest door, Jack laughed. "Oh, don't get your feathers in a ruffle. I'm not some biddy about to faint away from the pain. I sprained my ankle is all!"
"Shall I fetch the doctor?" Donovan asked as Jack supported herself on a pew stacked against the wall.
Jack glanced at Dr. Benjamin and Corrie, their bodies pressed close together and eyes locked. A contented smile graced Corrie's lips, and Jack would rather have died of malaria than disturb their happiness.
"Don't be ridiculous. Just--let me sit down outside for a moment, if you'll help me," Jack said, leaning again on Donovan and limping towards the door. His hand slid around her waist and she let her weight rest against him, surprised by his strength. With the eyes of half the town on them, Donovan and Jack limped outside the church to a small bench in the shadows.
Donovan sat beside her, watching her with earnest eyes as if she was so fragile that she would shatter into pieces before him. Jack lifted her ankle and removed her shoe.
"These dratted heels. I should have worn sensible boots instead."
Jack lifted her skirts and examined the ankle, already swelling from the twist. She sighed and moaned, "How am I supposed to go to the factory with this ankle?"
"I'm very sorry," Donovan said again. "I should not have grown so distracted."
"Oh, stop apologizing," Jack said, gingerly flexing the injured foot. "I'll be fine."
"Here, let me take a look," he said, prying her fingers away and pulling Jack's foot into his lap.
His fingers were warm and lingering on Jack's cold skin and she felt the prickle of goose bumps rise up her leg. He set her leg upon his knee and began to examine the swollen ankle, turning her foot this way and that as she winced from the pain each movement brought. However, as Donovan continued to examine her foot, Jack's attention moved from the pain shooting up her leg to the tickling sensation Donovan's svelte fingers inflicted on her foot. At first, her toes twitched, and then she started to squirm in the bench, a smile twisting at her lips.
"Hold still," Donovan said sternly which only broadened the smile on Jack's face.
Finally, Jack could bear the tickling no longer, so she snatched her leg from Donovan's lap, her toes curling in protest, as she released a loud laugh. "Stop, sweet mercy, please stop!" she cried.
Donovan released her foot and laughed with her, resting his arm on the back of the bench and leaning in toward Jack. They both laughed for a minute and Jack even forgot the throbbing pain in her ankle as she studied him with his dark eyes crinkled in laughter and centered only on her, all distractions forgotten. Donovan leaned towards her on the back of the bench and Jack watched as the laughter faded from his as their breath mixed, the distance between them suddenly shrunken and minimal and dying to be obliterated.
Jack caught her breath as Donovan leaned towards her, slowly, painstakingly. His eyes skimmed over her face, and she wondered if he saw every wrinkle and sun spot and mark of old age or if he saw her, Jack, the woman. Whatever he saw he must have liked, for he leaned closer and Jack felt her heart shudder to a stop in her chest.
His eyes refocused on her as he drew closer, each moment paralyzing in its clarity and tension. Jack's breath stalled in her throat as she stared wide-eyed at Donovan. He's going to kiss me. Something in Jack, perhaps the echoing voice of her mother from the halls of the past, told her she was making an irreparable mistake, but Jack had never listened to anyone but herself, and she closed the lingering space between Donovan, pressing her lips softly to his.
Her eyes fluttered shut upon impact, sensation aching through her skin as heat spread between them. Jack's back stiffened and she leaned into the hesitant kiss. All thoughts of ration and propriety faded from Jack's thoughts as Donovan's hand reached for her, brushing a stray strand of hair behind her ear and sliding to her neck, pulling her closer to him.
In that moment, Jack forgot Donovan's mysterious past and their short acquaintance and the censure of the town. She only knew that moment, that feeling. She only knew that this was right.
EEEEP! It finally happened! What did you think? Is that how you expected them to kiss for the first time, or did you think something would go wrong first? And what happens now? Let me know in the comments!