by Lynda J. Cox
ABIGAIL SAT ON THE glider on the front porch, a light shawl wrapped around her shoulders. The peace and calm that settled over the town with the darkness didn’t extend to her tangled thoughts. The more she attempted to puzzle out the day’s events, the more tangled her thoughts grew.
When Mathew returned with Ethan in tow, a noticeable edge lined Mathew’s words. A bright sparkle of something that bordered on fear lit the depths of his eyes if Ethan strayed out of his sight. Though it was against her better judgment, he wouldn’t even tolerate Ethan out of his sight when he tended to Aaron.
Calvin Meyers had willingly ridden his little mule out to the Brokken Arrow Ranch with news of what had happened to Aaron. Isaac showed up on the front porch a little while later with Deborah Brokken. While Deborah waited in the gleaming black buggy, Isaac, Deborah’s foreman, had assisted Aaron from the house and drove the two Jennings brothers to the Brokken Arrow.
Her thoughts turned to how Mathew had handled the emergency with Aaron. Sam had been a good doctor and a good surgeon. The few crises she had seen Sam deal with, his actions had a sense of alarmed haste. On the other hand, Mathew’s precision was controlled and coolly calm, relaxed even, though she knew he hadn’t been relaxed at all. The well-being of her friends and neighbors would be in capable hands with Mathew. And, yet, there was still disappointment thrumming through her. She didn’t want a marriage that was loveless.
As if anyone could admit to being in love after only one day...Abigail pulled in hard on that thought. Hadn’t she lost her heart to Ethan in a matter of minutes? To be honest, it wasn’t just Ethan she’d lost her heart to.
It took years for Sam to ever say he loved her. In the beginning of her marriage to Sam, there had been anger. Sam never mistreated her, and even though he had married her to save his honor, he accused her of trapping him. At least, there wouldn’t be that between her and Mathew. Guilt ate her conscience, as searing as a strong acid, for once more comparing the two men.
“May I join you?”
Abigail startled when Mathew interrupted her thoughts. She quickly composed herself and looked to the open front door. “Of course.”
The aroma of strong coffee preceded him. Wordlessly, he handed a cup to her and settled himself on the glider. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it didn’t feel strained, either. Instead, it was as if they both sought a manner to begin a conversation.
“I’m sor—”
“What happ—”
They started talking and fell silent at the same time. A soft chuckle broke from him and she couldn’t halt her smile. Abigail gestured to him in a conceding manner.
Mathew shook his head. “Ladies first.”
She set her coffee on the small table next to the glider and asked, “What happened when you went to the jail?”
The lines of his face tightened and his whole posture altered and stiffened. “Nothing.” The cold in his voice was enough to frost the air.
Abigail pulled her shawl more tightly over her shoulders against that chill. “Something happened.”
He shook his head again. “That’s just it. Nothing happened but...”
Abigail let the silence sit when he trailed off. His gaze settled across the street, and she took the opportunity to study his profile. He had shed his frock coat and tie. The collar of his shirt was opened, and the sleeves rolled back to mid-forearm. That he felt comfortable enough with her to uncover his left arm spoke volumes. The furrowing of his brow was visible even in profile.
Somewhere in the hills around the town, a coyote yodeled and barked. Another soon answered. Old man Fenton’s chickens were probably on the menu. The coffee at her elbow coiled a faint tendril of steam into the unseasonably chilly air.
He drank from his own steaming cup and then said, “I don’t trust Roden.”
Abigail moved closer to Mathew and pulled her hand down his upper arm. He hadn’t been rattled when Robbie pushed a gun into his chest, but something had been said or done earlier when Mathew went to the jail. Whatever it was had unnerved him.
He leaned forward and set his cup on the floor at his feet. A long breath eased from him as he tilted his head. “He refused to let me treat his wound anymore, and when the sheriff released him—”
“Vic let him go? Why?” Abigail jerked her head back. Sudden cold knots twisted in her stomach. The yelping of the coyotes changed to excited yapping and barking. Their hunt was over, and the pack was celebrating. A shiver that started in her twisted gut rippled through her.
“To paraphrase the sheriff, it’s not illegal to act like a total fool.” A wry grin twisted up a corner of his mouth. “He did nothing against the law. She had no reason to keep him behind bars, and when she cut him loose, he went straight to Molly’s café.”
The knots in her stomach multiplied and grew. “Ethan.” The child’s name slipped from her lips on little more than a frightened whisper. Abigail shook herself with the immediate surge of anger and protectiveness that washed over her. “Did he do anything to Ethan?”
“No. I saw where he was going and asked the sheriff to wait at the café until I could get him.” He turned on the seat to fully face her. “I should have told you this when I first got back here this morning and trusted you enough to understand.”
She heard the apology in his words, even if he didn’t say the two simple words. The furrowing of his brow eased when she leaned closer to him and traced the strong line of his jaw with her fingertips. “Trust takes time to build. We have time, Mathew.”
Chapter Fifteen
Something woke him from a sound sleep. Mathew rolled onto his back, listening to the sounds he had become accustomed to. Nothing out of the ordinary, but he was unable to fall back to sleep. He folded his arms under his head and stared at the high ceiling of the bedroom, allowing his thoughts to wander as they wished.
Brokken had been home for two weeks. Time allowed him to settle into a routine, something Mathew would admit had been sorely lacking from his life for the past few years, and especially in the previous six months.
He had never been an early riser, though life in the Confederate forces had required it of him, as had life with Ethan. Abigail, on the other hand, was up before the sun. Every morning, he woke to the scent of brewing coffee and whatever she prepared for breakfast. Yesterday, his morning had started with pancakes, eggs, bacon, and fried potatoes.
Under her care, Ethan had sprouted at least an inch, and his much too thin frame had started to fill out. Ethan was talking more, too, and no longer in broken sentences. More importantly, his son’s confidence grew as much as his little body. He seldom cowered in fear, and his laughter was a common sound in the house. Just that night, Abigail had convinced Ethan to take a bath by making it a game.
His gaze fell onto the quilt that had marked the division of the bed for a grand total of two nights. Pastor Grisson’s hints they should repeat their vows within the church had become less and less subtle over the intervening two weeks. Abigail steadfastly refused to set foot in the small church or even speak to the preacher until Grisson apologized to him. Mathew tried to point out the preacher’s hints were Grisson’s manner of offering an apology, but Abigail was having none of it. Unless and until the preacher actually said the words, he was wrong to have accused Mathew of being a liar, as far as Abigail was concerned, they were married enough by the proxy.
Mathew pulled his hand down his face. If they were married enough by the proxy, why did he feel as if there was still a line of demarcation through the middle of the bed as defined as the Mason-Dixon divided North from South? His sight shifted to the woman sleeping with her back to him, her form washed in the pale silver of moonlight.
A soft, almost inaudible whimper sounded from her, and she thrust a hand out in her sleep, her fingers grasping at the air. Another tiny cry broke the silence. Mathew leaned over and gently stroked her shoulder, not wanting to wake her but hoping to interrupt whatever ghosts disturbed her sleep.
Abigail turned t
o him, flinging her arms around his torso and burying her face against his chest. With a muffled sob, her tears fell. He enfolded her in his embrace, startled with the violent trembling that shook her.
“I had the most awful dream,” she said, her voice thick with sleep and tears. “You went away and didn’t come back. I was so alone.”
Sam. She’d been dreaming about Sam.
Mathew inhaled sharply and stiffened. The longing in her voice shouldn’t have the power to lance through him, shouldn’t constrict his chest so much he couldn’t force his next breath free. He disentangled himself from her embrace, and even though he wanted to shove her away from him, he reined in enough on the pain to gently push her back.
Abigail sat up, her eyes widening as she slipped free of the last tendrils of sleep.
“Mathew.”
His name slipped from her on a whisper. He ground his teeth together to keep any response corralled. She leaned closer to him, reaching for him again. He caught her shoulders, stopping her from sliding her arms around him with a curt shake of his head.
Without a word, he swung his legs out of the bed and stood.
“Where are you going?”
He shook his head again as he pulled on his shirt. “I don’t know.”
“I was dreaming. I didn’t—”
“Abigail, stop.” He walked to the open doorway and paused. “Don’t try to explain it. You’ll just make it worse.”
He made his way through the dark and silent house and then out onto the back porch. A robin twittered sleepily from the mesquite tree next to the house. The eastern skies drew his attention as he sank to sit on the top step. The first faint blush of dawn edged the distant horizon, the color becoming more intense and fiery with each passing second. The old adage about a red sky in the morning nudged his memory, but he couldn’t recall if it meant a change was coming or storms were approaching. He supposed it really didn’t matter because he couldn’t change the weather.
“Mathew.”
His closed his eyes and lowered his head. A rustle of fabric told him she sat next to him.
“I was dreaming.”
“Don’t.” He didn’t open his eyes or raise his head. He couldn’t change this either. He couldn’t stop the pain rending his heart knowing it was a man who had been dead for four years she still dreamed of.
“I have to tell you—”
“No, you don’t.” He put his hands on his knees, to push himself to stand. Her slender hand closed on his elbow and he hesitated. “You’re still in love with him, Abigail. I won’t compete with the memory of a dead man for your affections.”
Her hand fell away, and he stood. He looked at the eastern horizon again. Half the sky appeared to be glowing with the fires from a blacksmith’s forge. “An annulment at this stage is an impossibility.”
A soft gasp broke from her. “Mathew—”
“I can’t file for a divorce because there technically hasn’t been any infidelity.” He pulled his gaze from the angry red skies and finally looked at her. “But, if it’s all the same to you, I’ll move into one of the upstairs bedrooms. I’d prefer to not sleep with the ghost of your first husband.”
She shot to her feet. Anger sparkled in her eyes, turning the cinnamon color into amber. “I live with her ghost every moment of every day. You can’t tell me every time you look at Ethan, you don’t see her.” She took a step closer to him, jabbing her finger into his chest. “I wasn’t dreaming about Sam, Mathew Knight. At first, I thought it was Sam I was trying to catch up to in the rain, but he was never as tall as the man in my dream. Sam didn’t have dark hair, either.”
“You were dreaming about me?” Even he heard the disbelief and scathing derision in his words.
“Why do you doubt that? Once, I did love Sam with all my heart, and he will always be a part of my past. My past, Mathew. My past.” She backed away, the fight draining from her. “I’ll start breakfast, so you can get to the homesteads outside of town and back before the storms hit later today.”
She walked into the house, her demeanor defeated and crushed.
Mathew watched the sunrise, blaming the bright light for the burning in his eyes. She hadn’t said Sam’s name when she woke. He blinked, the imprint of the rising sun leaving a shadow in his vision. A long, slow breath eased from him. There were too many ghosts in this house. He couldn’t live with one of them, and he didn’t know how to evict the other.
ETHAN LOOKED UP AT her, his expression the very definition of pleading. “Can I go with Abe and Mr. Reed?”
“Please, Miz, Bailey, can Ethan go with us?” Abe asked. Abigail didn’t correct him on the use of her former name.
Thomas Reed gestured toward the other side of town. “Abe’s been telling me about the fishing over in the Brokken Creek and Northview Lake. Figured we’d go wet a few lines and drown some worms. I’ll have him back before supper.”
She looked down the street toward Molly’s café. “Mathew is seeing to patients well outside of town, but he should be back in a few hours. I was going to take Ethan with me to collect plants.”
A long sigh broke from the boy. “I want to go fishing,” Ethan grumbled.
If Ethan went with Reed and Abe, it would give her some time to restock her medicinal plants. She wasn’t about to capitulate quite so easily though after his outburst. Abigail slanted a glare down to him and he added, “Please.”
She made it appear she was considering refusing. Then, she nodded. “If Mathew or I aren’t here when you return with Ethan, Mr. Reed, will you take him to the café and one of us will bring him home from there?”
Reed nodded. “They can keep each other occupied and out from under foot at the café.”
“Can I go?” Ethan asked again.
“You have to promise that you’ll be careful.” Abigail adjusted Ethan’s overalls, and smoothed the unruly cowlick on the back of his head. “And, you’ll mind Mr. Reed.”
“I promise.” Ethan squirmed away from her.
She grabbed his shoulders before he made good his escape and kissed the top of his head. “Bring home a big fish, and I’ll cook it for your supper.”
Ethan ran from the porch, took an offered cane pole from Abe, and fell in step behind Reed. Though Abe was half a year older than Ethan, the boys were the same height. With the poles slung over their shoulders, traipsing barefooted along the dusty street, they could be mistaken for brothers.
A renewed sadness filled Abigail. Even if Mathew hadn’t taken up residence that morning in one of the upstairs bedrooms, she would never be able to give Ethan a sibling. She gave herself a hard, mental shake. That kind of thinking did nothing but add to the sense of defeat.
She picked her basket up off the glider, made sure her scissors, small hand-held shovel, and gloves were in the wicker depths, and marched off the porch. She had plants to gather for tinctures and poultices. Wild licorice grew along the stream bed by the Davis’s old place. She’d start there.
By the time she reached the abandoned homestead, sweat soaked her shirtwaist, and she regretted not having her hair pulled up off her neck. Each breath felt as if she was breathing through a warm, damp towel. Rain crows cooed and serenaded one another from the brush. Along the creek side, it sounded as if every frog and toad in the whole state was croaking in a determined effort to drown out all other sounds.
She glanced up at the sky and briefly considered going back home.
The clouds built on themselves, towering into the deep blue sky, looking like so many bolls of cotton piled on one another. Their undersides were flattening and growing darker even as she watched them rise higher and higher.
Everything said rain was coming: the deep, fiery sunrise, the mournful calls of the rain crows, the cacophony of the frogs and toads, the way the trees curled and turned their leaves up, the growing thickness and darkness of the clouds, even the way she felt as if every hair stood on end. Her skin crawled with agitation and anticipation.
Abigail paused before go
ing to the banks of the small creek, peering intently into the thick brush. Her run-in with a cougar a few months before in this same place urged caution. She shook her head, not sure if she was amused or horrified with Deborah Brokken’s reaction when Deborah had seen the same big cat a day or so later. Deborah viewed the animal as some sort of spirit guide or a sign from on high and had practically begged for the animal to be left alone. Deborah seemed to think the cougar was an over-grown house cat.
Her scrutiny of the underbrush didn’t reveal any sign of Deborah’s kitty. If the cougar had any sense at all, it was sleeping away the heat of the day in a cool, dark place. Abigail made her way to the creek to harvest fresh, young, wild licorice shoots.
She wasn’t sure how long she had been on the creek bank, but she found not only the licorice, but several rhizomes of sweet flag, harvested several armfuls of willow shoots, and even a small stand of black cohosh. Splashing in the creek interrupted her attempt to identify another rhizome. Mistaking sweet flag for blue flag would have fatal consequences.
She looked up, shocked at how diffused the light was and how very strange it looked—as if the sunlight itself was bracing against incoming storms.
Caleb Cantwell rode down the middle of the creek, his ancient mule slipping more than once on the slick rocks of the bed. He reined the mule to a stop and tipped the brim of his tattered straw hat. “Miz Abby.”
She spared him a nod and began gathering up her plants. A faint, far-distant growl of thunder reached her.
“Robbie asked me to find you.” Cantwell spoke with a slow deliberation, as if he had memorized what Robbie wanted him to say. “He said he has something of yours, and he’ll give it to you, but you have to come to his house.”
The darkening horizon drew her gaze. “Whatever it is, it’s going to have to wait until tomorrow. It’ll be storming by the time I get home.” She secured the willow branches into one bundle and placed them over the roots and rhizomes in the basket.
Cantwell seemed at a loss with that answer. Abigail allowed herself a rueful sigh. “Tell Robbie I’ll see him tomorrow.”