Wet-haired in unbuttoned trousers, suspenders slung at lean hips, Han frowned between two shirts tossed on his quilt. Which to wear to her supper, Sunday linen or humble flannel? He'd abandoned each when he tore out across the Midwest. The linen he left because he'd never had much use for church; at the terrible end of that beautiful summer, Han would've met Old Scratch if only any of it could be reversed. And the green flannel he'd worn to the Christmas social seemed to stretch back in time itself, echoing the touch of that treacherous little—
Ah, Han had long heard the jilted drunks at Lucky's, preaching the evil of women who'd torched their souls. Jezebel. She-devil. Bitch. But he was unable to call her that, even in the gentle dawn he knew she was gone. No, Han could not call her that, even as he touched the match to her note and watched it go up, holding the parchment until flame licked his fingertips.
There was one other shirt he did not pack. Blue cotton, hideously enriched with creek-silt and blood, tiny mocking flakes of silver. Cloth ripped from how tight he'd clutched it around her. That shirt, Han burned with her damned letter. Ashes to ashes. And at this secret pyre for his love of Leia Organa, tears reached Han after all, as they had not in the churchyard, over the grave of his father.
Leia liked the green. She'd said so.
Han watched his arm stretch for flannel, then stop. Leia liked the green...before. He reached to drag fingers through his hair, remembered just in time he'd combed it. Stopped himself again. Stop, stop, stop. Growing up, it seemed that word was all he heard.
Rules. He'd never been worth a damn at 'em. Always Han Solo's hand strapped red for walking the schoolhouse roof on a dare. For lighting ha'penny firecrackers, throwing them clear just before the bang and flare. With such scorn for his basic safety, the hoity-toity manners Robert affected—far beyond the social courtesies Ma taught them—were, to Han, written in smoke. He had a firm handshake and chewed with his mouth closed, he bathed daily and wore clean clothes. Beyond that, Han figured, who cared? Sure, he swore. Drank. Neglected his razor. Rode fast, wagered, wore his hat (sometimes his gun) to dances. Panned for gold, meant to see the world. Life was short. Han wasn't gonna spend it learning his forks.
But underneath his youthful bravado, Han never knew why his behavior provoked such severity. Why, since he was a boy, so many folks took some scolding whip to him, as that drover meant to do to Fix. When everyone took liberties, everyone had tricks, most much worse than his! After Pop kicked him out, Han finally understood: the problem wasn't his nerve, not even that he wanted more from life. It was that he couldn't, or wouldn't, hide it.
Most of what interested Han about living existed outside himself, so he didn't dwell on his apartness. His solitary bent appeared, though, in his walk, the set of his shoulders, the ironic slant to his smart mouth. He fully expected, with a matter-of-fact lack of self-pity, to remain a bachelor. Han wasn't Patrick; he ached for women in worldly fashion, enough that it vexed him. But even though, as a man, he had free sexual rein—so long as it was kept hidden—for women sex required marriage, and Han couldn't imagine spinning sweet lies about his intentions. A hand of poker was one thing, but bluffing for lust was well beneath him.
Yet Han couldn't reconcile himself to a lifetime of false companionship, either. Each time he imagined being wedded he saw a small house on his father's land, a day working the fields, stilted conversation with some nice but distant wife at supper. The mute lying next to a benign stranger in the dark, night after night, year after year and—it made him shudder. He wasn't the type to rent affections by the hour. So that was that. Han Solo was, in his latter twenties, not a virgin but surely closer than any gossip would guess him.
And then Han met, over a half-broke horse, the girl who couldn't hide or settle, either. It all worked. It all clicked. They spoke in torrents; they rode in close, flexible silence; God, how she made him laugh. Nothing was effort, with Leia. No rules to break because all was rightness.
Or so he'd believed.
His name would be forever linked to Leia's in the petty history of Whiskey Knot; reviled there, or revered, as her defiler. How everyone outside the livery stable, or inside the sewing circle, would cluck over the truth. If they knew how Han's fingers had trembled, almost strumming the laces at the small of her back. His famous deftness obliterated by Leia pressed so close, toes on his boots and palms flat at his chest, her kiss at the base of his throat.
I dare you, she whispered, into that arrowhead hollow dividing his collarbones.
Taking her shapely hips in his hands, Han aimed for cavalier—Sweetheart, a dare is different than a bet—but this default evasion was offset by convulsive bob of his Adam's apple. He felt Leia's lips curved triumphant against that movement. And then she stepped back from Han enough that he could see her corset fall away. She wanted to watch him watch. To call his bluff.
Han couldn't have suppressed it if he wanted to, his ruined groan at her revelation: Leia gilded in light through her thin chemise. He had to close his eyes against her, she was like the sun herself, burning through that last layer. When he looked again, she had moved into the water. And there Han was, scrambling to escape his simple shirt, boots, trousers. Falling over in his haste to follow! Hardly the cool seducer of local rumor.
Still, when Han remembered—and he was powerless not to, that afternoon as seared into him as her letter—Leia's teasing was tender when he caught her. She shared his fear and eagerness, shaking in his arms despite the August heat. Heart fluttering in her neck, beating its tensile butterfly strength. Their kisses clumsy with hunger, gathering in power, dizzying and deep; laughing breathless nerves against each other's lips.
But even enthralled, even unbearably ready, Han held enough sense to know that Leia—that the risks for Leia were—well, to know, and so Han spoke again to her, this time low and close. You can be certain of me. Just the sort of words men used to persuade women, that Han had long refused to falsely employ. But with Leia, this was no enticing lie—oh he wanted her, wanted Leia so he felt he'd die but Han needed her to know it first, that he loved her, was hers forever. Whatever may come. And there on the urgent edge of it all, Han felt Leia wanted him too; loved him too, down to his singular, restless soul.
But Pop had been right all along: the word for Han was reckless.
Han knew, of course he knew he'd failed her. He was most of a decade older! He should've been wiser. Stronger. Braver: if he'd had the guts to ask sooner, if they'd been wed, or even betrothed, when—if she'd worn his ring on her finger, then...
He'd never forgive himself for his errors, but he hadn't imagined, until Leia's letter, that it was over. How many times had Han read her note, scanning frantically for the joke? Even after he torched the paper the words remained in his mind, acrid and inflamed as a brand. Han in her flowing copperplate, so flawless it was insult atop torture. Do not call for me again. I will not see you.
Han came out of shock somewhere on the Nebraska steppes. Cracking the wax neck on a bottle. It was September, a rime of early frost at night, but his campfire was half-assed and his bedroll scant. Maybe he was trying to freeze to death. Not that Han felt the chill: Leia's absence hurt so much he felt burned at the stake, like he was some dusty prairie take on that window Pop bought for the church, the one Han had always hated. And as he shivered and didn't feel it, whiskey kindled another spark of resentment in Han's heart. One he stoked until it consumed, drove back his grief and guilt. By this harsh light, Han reckoned if his Princess could sack him so easy—Jesus, that vicious, perfect cursive!—she hadn't loved him at all. She'd been amusing herself with a commoner. Using him to measure her daring.
You are not the caliber of person I wish to know any further.
Bitterly Han toasted the coyotes lurking at the flickering borders of his camp. Blast, can't blame her. What, what could Leia—so beautiful, smart, classy—want with this big lug with his dopey reassurance—she could be certain of him? Hah! Leia'd jumped at the chance to be shut of him. I was Her Worship's feller for awhile, yeah, Han sneered at the scavengers, at the stars. Ignored Fix's troubled nicker at his master's fractured voice. But I never, not for one second, had a shot in hell at bein' her man.
Now Han grabbed up the white shirt from his mattress. Not bothering with a singlet—the linen too fitted for it, and opaque enough to obscure the hair at his chest—Han slotted shell buttons into double-stitched slits. Softly cursed as he wrestled cuffs shut at his sturdy wrists. He preferred his sleeves rolled up, but some fine Yank suitor would—
"Get you, birthday boy!"
Han turned, tucking shirt-tails into his open trousers. Robert stood in the doorway, parcel under his arm. At breakfast this morning, Pat also had a present for Han, wrapped in newsprint from the firebox: a panner's almanac, mail-ordered from California. And as Han grinned, genuinely touched, Robert—never one to be outdone—grandly said Han could take the next day off from harvest. Han cocked a brow at Pat and Pat winked back, awaiting the catch. But in Pop's old chair at the head of the table, Robert just kept chewing his flapjacks.
Strolling into the room, Robert waved at Han's snowy shirt and slim gray serge trousers, his tamed hair, painstaking shave. "She's already asked you?"
Han blinked. He hadn't told anyone of Leia's invitation, let alone Robert. But he was distracted, then, by Robert crossing the rag rug, holding out his gift. Wary as though it contained a rabid bat, Han stripped gilt wrap to a haberdasher's box. Inside that, nestled in delicate muslin, was a black cravat and white kidskin collar. Even to Han's unsophisticated eye, much finer than what Robert pressed upon him before the Howard party.
Always wanted a fancy noose, Han began to say, then bit his lip. Looked again.
When most young men had learned the rules of courting, Han was hired out to Sweetwater County, Wyoming (whatever Robert had had to do with that, Han forced himself as always to ignore). So it must have been coarse male error that drove Leia away. Barriers he'd clumsily bounded over in his eagerness to be close to her. Not just...like that, but Han was old enough to accept some of what Pop said as fact: everything was rush, rush, fast with Han.
This time he'd be a gentleman.
Earlier today he'd sought Ma's advice, but when Han entered the bedroom she'd borne him in, Ma whispered from her pillow that she'd make his chips in a little while, love. He nodded hard—she hadn't called him love since he was eight—and bent to press a kiss to Ma's sharp cheek. Thinking, with a pang of complicated affection, it was best he couldn't ask Ma's help: Pop had wooed her with the romance of a feed catalogue, and Han was living proof that Ma accepted.
Pat? Pat was trustworthy as the seasons, but never glanced up from book or fields long enough to notice a woman. Seemed to avoid 'em, even.
Robert, though. Robert's marriage wasn't what Han wanted for himself—despite their forty children, the couple only seemed to interact when gossiping about some poor sap—but Robert did understand social rules. And what was it Robert said: she already asked you? Robert was smart, right? He must have guessed where Han was going tonight, the woman Han sought to impress. Yeah, Robert had been a goat's ass at the contest yesterday, but surely he'd learned respect for Leia after her incredible performance. Couldn't this expensive tie, however fussy, be Robert's belated support of Han's hopes?
At Han's searching glance, Robert raised quizzical brows. Not mean, not sly; the welcome was brief, yet enough that Han recalled another big brother. A young man who, every rare while, did Han a favor. It was Pat who taught Han how to shoot, to string a fishhook, to build a fire. But it was Robert who pulled small Han back at the schoolhouse door on his first day, knelt to knot his loose bootlace.
"...thanks, Bobby." Han tried, eyes lowered. "Listen. I—"
"It's not from me, blockhead."
Han looked sharply up, fraternal sentiment curdling into hard-taught caution. Rifling the muslin, Robert found a calligraphed card, thrust it at Han. The cloying scent of gardenia water identified the gift's true sender before Han read her dinner invitation, or her equally flowery signature.
"Day off on the morrow, remember." Gleefully Robert poked Han between the ribs. "So! Stay at Bright Oaks late as you—"
Shaking his head, Han had to laugh. Half exasperation, half relief to be freed from the delusion of trust. He tossed Eileen Howard's summons back in the box as though culling the joker from a fresh deck.
"Already got plans."
"A likely story." Chuckling, Robert reached to muss Han's careful hair. "Bit too spit-polished for Lucky's!"
"Ain't goin' to Lucky's," Han said, ducking his head, too riled to think better of his candor.
Irritation flickered Robert's short fair lashes. But he visibly controlled it. Opted for brotherly encouragement, all the more galling to Han because he had so nearly sought it.
"Right, I see." Almost gently, Robert took the box from Han. "You're afeared, to have a fine chance like Eileen set her cap for you. Especially when...another girl is, ehrm. A sure bet." He winked. "Well hell, baby, wild oats, easy fields! I do understand it." Robert tapped Han's shoulder with pastel cardboard as though dubbing a reluctant knight. "Think of Eileen as Lady Luck, Han. A little harder to win over, but she's your winning hand."
Robert puffed, expectantly pleased with his lecture. Han's stony silence persisted.
"Hey now. Buck up, man." Robert's smooth tenor sharpened. "A little late for you to play blushing maiden, after—"
Han jerked away, buttoning his trousers with spiky dignity, even a protection that extended beyond himself. As though, in her kitchen across Whiskey Knot, Leia could be rendered exposed and helpless.
Frustration warped Robert's avuncular mask. "What more could you possibly want? Eileen is fetching...rich,"
"That's what this is about? Still?" Curtly Han thumbed his suspenders up, one after the other. "You gettin' in good with the mayor?"
"Don't you see," Robert said wildly, "wed Eileen and you're set. No damn farming! You can gamble, drink: give her a child and you—"
"Christ!" Han's lips twisted in disgust. "Why don't you just shunt me out to stud?"
As Han pushed past him for the door, Robert slapped his own palm with the box, making Han recall the schoolmaster's strap. "Fine. Fine! Do what you like—"
"Always do, Bob."
"—but suppose Eileen hears whose company you're keeping tonight?"
Han's turn back to Robert was menacingly slow. Robert assumed his full height, not conceding that at twenty-nine Han was half a hand taller, never mind broader through the shoulders. Not tracking the way Han was stalking forward, lids heavy over leaden irises.
"It's illegal in Whiskey Knot for a man to be alone at an unmarried lady's residence." Robert shrugged. "Mayor Bill's order. Said it yourself, boyo: he's Eileen's father." His smile was regretful. "I'd hate people to think that wee hired girl was running a house of—"
"Like the Marigold Mile?" Han's smile was like sun off a scythe. It didn't touch his eyes. "Huh?"
"How dare—" Robert spluttered just before Han drove him into the wall, forearm axehandled across Robert's narrower chest. Perfumed box crumpled, fine tie and collar crushed.
"No." Han snarled into Robert's frozen face. "Not her. Not Leia."
Robert's croak was sickly. "I didn't mean—"
"Not. Leia." Lupine grin becoming gritted teeth, Han ground the box into Robert's ribcage like one of the mayor's trademark cigars on his brother's flesh. "Unless you want me to come for your fuckin' throat."
Han released Robert into wheezing disbelief.
"Thanks for tomorrow off," Han spat. Left without looking back.
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Leia peered into the open oven. Under the rack holding the enamel pan, thick cords of hickory burned steady and slow, ideal for roasting. The bird was smaller than Mayor Howard bragged, Leia had wryly noted as she stuffed it with herbs, onion, cubed bread. Closer to twelve pounds than fifteen, though it felt like a ton yesterday, in her aching arms. But smaller meant it should cook faster. Hours in, the kitchen was fragrant with thyme, rosemary, sage; the turkey should be nearly done, yet its buttered skin appeared bronzed in erratic patches.
It was her imagination, Leia decided, rising briskly from her knees, wrapping her hand in her apron to close the iron door with a muted clang. The turkey was sizzling, surely its piebald color was mere trick of the light. Leia turned up the lampwick; her gaze slid to the potato chips, waiting on the counter in their ceramic bowl. They looked almost accusingly delicious, golden and finished as the turkey was not. Oh, those? Nothing to do with her, no: they'd simply grown there on their own, or so she'd tell Han Solo if he noticed. And he would notice, judging from what Jane Solo had said at harvest about her youngest son's favorite treat.
It's his birthday! Leia had thought, flustered to discover what she'd done with the russets she'd planned to mash. Why not be nice? Yes! This was acceptable risk. Leia would be nice to Han, tonight. No more, no less. Resentment belonged in the past, with the rest of the trusts and passions that once existed between them. Anger burned with its own volatile lust. But nice? Even the word was mild and cool as milk.
Leia wasn't sure if it helped, this bargaining with herself as she salted the chips. On one hand, equivocation was offensive to her nature. On the other, it made for compelling distraction from her labor. And what Leia hadn't confessed to Han, when she made her impetuous invitation, was how profoundly she loathed the kitchen.
She hadn't hated cooking before, when she worked for his mother. Never enjoyed it: joy was something other. Joy was childhood on gusty Boston Common, kite ripped from her grip and how Leia thrilled to see it escape, even as her palm smarted with rope-burn. It was learning to ride after the move west, fast Aldera a respite from grieving for Papa. Most of all Leia found joy in a particular set of angled lips. Whether Han's kisses were quick, silly pecks run like buttons all down her neck, broken by his chuckling; or a man's, oh deep, demanding, so full and ardent they bent her back, Leia loved them all.
Back in Boston—after she'd lost him; trying fruitlessly to lose him—Leia was placed on service waiver when Breha died. She'd maintained top grades, yet was forced to cook for the continued privilege of the scholarship issued her on merit, for the dormitory roof over her head. The college scullery was dingy, anonymous, exhausting. Worlds away from Jane Solo's sunny kitchen: her generous wages, practical lessons, impulsive hugs. Her extravagant leftovers and Irish songs.
After her shifts, Leia was too tired to effectively study. Her still-healing foot burned terribly. Yet, resistant to self-pity, Leia snorted when Luke said her lot was like the fairy tales they'd pretended as children. She'd only confessed her straits to him because she nodded off at his apartment and Luke thought she'd fainted.
I work late, then I have classes. My grades are abysmal. Leia said this on dismissive laughter, but Luke's expression was grave, gentle in the hearthglow. Again he requested to pay Leia's tuition. Again Leia felt in full her love for him and refused.
Leia bit her wine-flavored tongue, too, against telling Luke the news that the new anatomy instructor who inherited Breha's classes also took proprietary interest in Breha's daughter. Wanted dinner in his chambers, served by Miss Organa. She could not tell Luke this: Luke's kindness was tempered by lethal justice, and Leia looked out for herself.
She delivered Professor Smithee's dinner with a paring knife slipped in her pinafore pocket.
What she'd carried at the Marigold Mile was scissors. Scissors, when she went into the lounge to replace lacy antimacassars that shielded armchairs from hair-oil. Local politicians and burghers looked long at Leia, there; genteel licentiousness through cigar haze, but they didn't dare try her. There was something Leia felt radiating from her that kept these fine gentlemen at bay. She'd learned that firewall from Rouge; Rouge, whose palliative tonics Leia had to somehow afford. Rouge who would have risen from sickbed onto the rampage if she'd known her niece had taken the despised job she'd once held herself.
Han would have hated the Mile for her, too, Leia felt sure. She never told him she'd taken on its mending. This omission was not out of dishonesty or shame. It was as though the place existed in another dimension from him, irrelevant to their stolen time. Han was gratifyingly impossible to picture in that stuffy lounge, under portraits of bankers and mayors. Han who never greased his unruly hair. Han who played faro and snooker for cash, not whist and shuffleboard for votes. Han with huge hands wholesomely roughened from reins, gritty sand and chaff, not soft from shuffling paper; Han who would never hold a dollar to a candle just to see the waiter suffer.
Han, who didn't eye Leia up as though fingering a grubby deed of ownership. When he left her in the evenings, when she looked over her shoulder, Leia caught him watching. Caught Han leaning back in the gig, long leg braced on the dash, watching her from under his hat. His stare dreamy, starved, almost superstitious. Heavy-lidded, as though Leia were a wondrous figure, all made up of silvery light. And in those moments Leia felt both deeply known and like a marvellous mystery, even to herself. One for their shared solving.
Han. Her Han, a different kind of man.
She also never told Han about the Mile because his brother was a frequent visitor. Not big Patrick, shy and courteous, but Robert: slick of hair, slick of nature. Imperious as head of the Solo farm and the Solo table, but craven before the whims of rich, established club fellows. Not quite the money-burning boor, but servile audience to such sport.
To be fair, Robert Solo left Leia well alone at the Marigold Mile; he gave no sign that he saw her, let alone recognized her as his mother's hired girl. And it was because she was Jane's hired girl that Leia knew Robert was married. Yet she saw him climb that ornate brass staircase like every other greedy member. To think Leia believed, back then, that Robert's behavior would upset Han, shame him.
Thankfully, Leia never encountered Robert on the yellow-papered upper floor, where she collected frayed pillowslips. But one evening, Daniel Townsend stepped out of a suite as she passed. Knotting his silk tie, deliberate and sinister as a hangman, Daniel looked Leia over, apparently not sated by what he'd just paid for. And not slowing her stride Leia smiled back, let the scissors in her palm reflect the gaslight lamp. Daniel's own smile faltered. He did not approach her.
Professor Smithee never touched Leia either. Perhaps he sensed it, the lesson in dissection Leia would give him if those roving eyes, those insinuations, ever gave way to fingers.
She hadn't liked college, even before. Her father always said Leia was bright as a torch, and that was true, but only she knew how academia numbed her. Leia had been studying to escape Han Solo and for love of her stepmother; she had no inherent ambition to be a doctor or teacher. Now Breha was dead, and Leia would become neither. But even now, freed from collegiate pressure, tension bit into Leia's shoulders when she cooked. Some embitterment that rendered her meals not merely unpalatable to Leia, but corrupted. What was the point of building finicky structures of wood and paper, monitoring the oven's iron innards, all for her own scant appetite? Mostly Leia ate small meals of cheese and bread, milk and fruit; eggs and oatmeal boiled on the wide, deep parlor hearth. Hung her teakettle there, and heated bathwater in a big copper pot she sat in the ashes.
Leia looked at the stove again. Its black belly was tinted dull red, but was it as hot as it normally got? It was hard to tell, when she so rarely—
No. Stop. This was an absurd attempt to contrive another task in which to situate tonight's skittishness. There was too much accomplished, that was the problem: near-five of the clock and the house scoured, peas shucked and ready for steaming, table clothed and set. Leia untied her grease-spotted apron, grateful for one last distracting project.
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Leia meant to sit before the stove and let her hair dry as it might, then fix it softly up with her ivory combs. She didn't examine this notion closely, lest it reveal something about tonight's motives. Lest it recall a night-ride in the clipper, after the Christmas social: Han leaning close to tuck her under fur robes, to nestle heated rocks around her. Leia still able to picture him tending those stones in his mother's stove, biting his lower lip in that way he got. Planning, hoping to see her home.
Across her quilt, Leia draped a simple, pretty frock she'd recently completed. Dressmaking a task she didn't mind now that she wore what she liked. She'd found a cache of fabric in the attic, most tough and practical—denims, twills, corduroys—but some yardage was surprisingly delicate, aesthetic rather than utilitarian. For this pattern, which she'd altered to bare her collarbones, Leia chose a blush velvet, soft enough of hand to describe her shape.
Not that that mattered, Leia dismissed as she let her chemise float down over her bare chest—nervous or not, she would never go back to her corset—not that it was significant, that the dress flattered. Of no consideration to her, whatever sweet flush it brought her skin. Almost the pink of the rose on the Sweetheart tin he got for—
No, no, it was all just clothes!
Leia almost believed this until, stepping into velvet, she glimpsed herself in the bureau mirror, collecting sunset from its opposing window. And Leia froze, staring at her loose hair, her figure backlit through sheer silk. This was the sight that once lit Han's eyes to embers, heating her more than those river stones in winter. Her own veiled nakedness, edged in westerly flame.
Birthday suit, Leia thought, before she could stop it. Birthday gift.
Dropping the pink dress, Leia turned her back on that girl in the glass, damned past fool: dead, gone! How dare that ghost be so spendthrift yet, with the ruined heart of her present self? Princess velvets, delicate adornments in her hair? Little idiot, Leia hissed. Idiot phantom, still seeking her lost man. The man who looked on her like a constellation.
Storming to her wardrobe, Leia snatched her plainest dress, the crispest of fabric and highest of neck. One she didn't make herself: this was the required uniform for service in the college dining hall. Leia buttoned white poplin to her chin, braided and pinned her damp hair so tight it stung.
Leia turned back to the mirror; in white she was prim and austere, cool and waxy. An unlit candle.
Be nice.