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and washbasin.”
    He stretched to his feet, but moved cautiously. He crossed behind her and found a clean white washbasin in the sink, and on the nail, the clean white towel and washcloth. So white. Whiter than anything he remembered. In prison the washcloths had been puce green and had grown musty smelling long before clean ones were issued.
    Eleanor peered over her shoulder as he filled the washbasin, then dipped his hands into the cold water. “Don’t you want it warmed up?” He glanced back over his shoulder. His eyes, when they weren’t carefully blank, were questioning and uncertain.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he answered. But when he’d shaken off his hands and turned he made no move toward the teakettle. She plucked it off the stove and poured the warm water for him, then turned her back, pretending to go back to work. But she glanced surreptitiously over her shoulder, confounded by his strange hesitancy. He flattened both palms against the bottom of the basin and leaned forward with his head hung low. There he stood, stiff-armed, as if transfixed. What in the world was he doing? She tipped sideways and peeked aroundhim—his eyes were closed, his lips open. At last he scooped water to his face and gave a small shudder. Lord a-mercy, so that was it! Understanding swamped her. She felt a surge of heat flush her body, a queer sympathetic thrill, a gripping about her heart.
    “How long has it been?” she asked quietly.
    His head came up but he neither turned nor spoke. Water dripped from his face and hands into the basin.
    “How long since you had warm water?” she insisted in the kindest tone she could manage.
    “A long time.”
    “How long?”
    He didn’t want her pity. “Five years.”
    “You were in prison five years?”
    “Yes, ma’am.” He buried his face in the towel—it smelled of homemade lye soap and fresh air, and he took his time savoring its softness and scent.
    “You mean the water’s cold in there?”
    He hung up the towel without answering. The water had been cold all his life—creeks and lakes and horse troughs. And often he dried himself with his shirt, or on a lucky day, the sun.
    “How long you been out?”
    “Couple of months.”
    “How long since you ate a decent meal?”
    Still silent, he closed two buttons on his shirt, staring out a filmy window above the sink.
    “Mr. Parker, I asked you a question.”
    On a crude shelf to his left a small round mirror reflected her image. What he saw mostly was obstinacy.
    “A while,” he replied flatly while their mirrored eyes locked.
    Eleanor realized he was a man who’d accept a challenge more readily than charity, so she carefully wiped all sympathy from her voice. “I should think,” she admonished, stepping close behind him, holding his gaze in the mirror, “a man that’s been roughing it might need a touch of soap.” She reached around him, picked up a bar of Ivory and plopped it into his hand, then rested her own on her hips.“You’re not in prison anymore, Mr. Parker. Soap is free for the taking here, and there’s always warm water. Only thing I ask is that when you’re through you spill it out and rinse the basin.”
    Staring at her in the mirror, he felt as if an immense weight had lifted from his chest. She stood in the pose of a fighter, daring him to defy her. But beneath her stern façade, he sensed a generous spirit. “Yes, ma’am,” he returned quietly. And this time before leaning over the welcome warm water, he shrugged out of his shirt.
    Holy Moses, was he thin. From behind she eyed his ribs. They stuck out like a kite frame in a strong wind. He began spreading soapsuds with his hands—chest, arms, neck and as far around his trunk as he could reach. He bent forward, and her eyes were drawn down his tan back to where a white band of skin appeared above the line of grayed elastic on his underwear.
    She had never seen any man but Glendon wash up. Grandpa was the only other male she’d ever lived with and he