Silas was still coughing at night and couldn’t shake the ague that beset him from time to time. He seemed so low, Flynn hesitated to do anything to make the man feel worse. Instead, Flynn kept Leatrice away from Irene.
He let Leatrice know she had to mind her manners around Irene. That took some convincing and more than a week of plates carried to the child in her bedroom, but eventually they got to the point where they could sit down at the supper table together. They didn’t have to worry about breakfast, because Irene wasn’t an early riser. And the midday meal could be packed out to the barn or wherever Flynn was working.
Breakfast was the best time. Leatrice fried their eggs and Silas always said they were the best he’d ever eaten, no matter how they came out of the skillet. Then he’d slice a piece of the bread he’d made, drizzle honey on it for Leatrice, and tell her the honey was what made her so sweet.
“I like doing it,” he told Flynn about making the bread. “Irene cooks plenty of other things. You have to admit we’re eating better now.”
Flynn did have to admit that. The woman was a good cook, and she kept the house swept and ready for company. Not that they had company. Irene was continually complaining about being isolated here on the farm, but then the woman complained about everything. Especially about Silas. He kept his silence, but Flynn had to wonder if he and Leatrice were the only ones sorry to be sharing a house with Irene.
But what could the man do? He’d married her. Some things had to be accepted and that was that. At the same time, Flynn couldn’t ignore how things might go from bad to worse to make him need somewhere else to live. With money he had set aside and a loan from the bank, he could get a place. But he didn’t feel right leaving Silas. The man was too weak to even cut wood for the fire. No way could he keep up the farm.
That was why Flynn was glad to hear about a place not far up the road for sale. It wasn’t much of a farm. Only ten acres, but it had a house and a barn. The house’s roof leaked and the windows were boarded up. But the barn was in fair shape. He could fix up the house and build corrals. He’d never been afraid of hard work. Best of all, he’d be close enough to help Silas.
The only thing holding Flynn back was telling Silas. The man wasn’t well. Irene made him a special tonic, but he kept getting worse instead of better. Flynn couldn’t help wondering what she put in that tonic. Whatever it was, it wasn’t helping.
But he had to admit Irene did take care of Silas. She made sure he sat near the fire and wrapped blankets around his knees. And she acted sweet as sugar to Leatrice, but nothing about her rang true to Flynn.
Leatrice didn’t warm to her. The child stiffened, as though poised to run, every time she was near the woman. Sometimes Flynn had the same urge to escape when the woman smiled at him. Not the right kind of smile, and she had a way of stepping too close in the kitchen. But it was a small room. A brush against him as she moved about the table didn’t have to be intentional. That was what he tried to believe.
Even so, things couldn’t go on the way they were. Leatrice begged him every morning to go back to visit the Shakers. But a man couldn’t just show up at their barns without a reason to be there. He’d finished with the horse Sawyer. Had him back to being a useful animal.
Thinking about the horse brought to mind the woman he’d seen in the barn that one morning. She had looked burdened down not only by the child she carried but also by the sadness of losing her husband. He understood that kind of burden.
At least she didn’t have to feel the guilt that could rear up in Flynn when he thought about Lena. He should have kept it from happening, but it did no good to dwell on that. What had happened couldn’t be changed.
Moving to a new place might be good, even if leaving behind this farm he’d come to feel of as his own wouldn’t be easy. Roots were hard to pull up when a man loved the land he walked across. But saplings could be transplanted and Leatrice needed a change. He sometimes heard her talking to the kittens in the loft, and while he couldn’t make out the words, she didn’t sound happy. Not since Silas had brought Irene home.
Still, he put off telling Silas, even after he made a deal for the Harley place. He could wait a little longer until Silas felt better.
But things changed the night he came in late, after checking on a mare ready to foal. The day had been warm with a summer feel. If the weather held, he aimed to head over to the new place and work on the roof. Silas wouldn’t have to know where he was and Leatrice could go with him. Maybe she’d think it an adventure, like going to the Shakers.
In the house all was quiet with everybody abed. Some embers glowed in the fireplace and he knelt down to add a log to keep the fire going till morning. Could be while he was down on his knees, he should ask the Lord for help with how to tell Silas about his new place. Flynn didn’t pray enough. Hadn’t ever prayed enough. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think he should. A man ought to pay attention to what the Lord had in mind for him.
When he lived with the McEntyres after his mother left for Virginia, he liked sitting at the table with them while they read the Bible and prayed. Ma McEntyre could pray up rain in the midst of a drought. She prayed about everything and never failed to pray for Flynn. Sometimes he wondered if she kept praying for him after she went to live with her son. He always hoped so.
He smiled as he remembered those prayers. “Help this boy do right.” “Keep him on the right paths.” “Forgive him when he does wrong ’cause he’s just a boy.” “Thank you, Lord, for sending him to us.”
She’d prayed the day Pa McEntyre fell off the barn roof, but not what Flynn expected her to pray. While Flynn checked to see if the old man had survived the fall, she looked up and said, “Lord, if’n you is ready for Pa, then I ain’t gonna stand in his way to move on to paradise.”
Flynn had wanted to stand in his way. He wanted the old man to keep drawing breath, but instead Flynn had dug his grave. He remembered Ma McEntyre’s prayer while Lena lay dying, but he wasn’t about to pray the same. He didn’t care how ready the Lord might be for Lena. He wanted to hold her with him. But she had died anyway.
Flynn bent his head as he knelt there, but no prayer words came to mind. Ma McEntyre had tried to teach him about praying. “You don’t need no fancy words, son. The Lord, he knows what you need. You do right and he’ll take care of you.”
He did try to do right. Not cheat anybody. Give an honest day’s work to earn his hire. He’d been faithful and cleaved to his wife without wayward thoughts. He went to church on occasion. Maybe not often enough, but no church was all that near and horses needed feeding on Sunday the same as any other day.
“But I could’ve done better than I’ve done about that.” He whispered the words into the dark. Once he started, words did come to him. “Help me figure out the best thing to do, Lord. You see and know everything. Future and past. Help me with the now.”
He paused a minute and then mumbled, “Amen.” He’d once heard a preacher say the word amen meant so be it. That when a person said amen after a prayer, it meant he was ready to accept whatever answer the Lord might send down, whether it was what he wanted or not. What other choice did a man have?
He could almost see Ma McEntyre frowning at him for thinking that. Her words whispered through his mind as though she were right beside him. The Lord’s answers are not just the best answers but the only answers.
“But what about him taking my Lena?”
Bad things happen. That’s when you have to depend on the Lord to help you through.
“Help me through.” He didn’t know whether he was just echoing what he was imagining Ma McEntyre telling him or sending another prayer heavenward.
With a sigh, he stood up. Time to shrug off problems and get some sleep. In his bedroom, the curtains were pulled tightly together over the window so no moonlight slipped into the room. He felt his way to a chair to take off his boots. He hung his pants on the back of the chair and pulled off his shirt.
He had the odd feeling h
e wasn’t alone in the room. All that thinking about Ma McEntyre, he supposed. The bed creaked when he sat down on it. A hand slid down his backbone.
He jumped up and whirled around.
Irene Black laughed softly. “I’ve been waiting for you.”
17
Flynn grabbed his pants off the chair and jerked them on before turning to face the woman again.
“What are you doing in here?” His eyes had adjusted enough to the darkness to make out her shape under the quilt on his bed.
She raised herself up on one elbow and laughed again. “I think you know exactly what I’m doing in here.”
“Get out.” He kept his voice low but put force in it. “Right now.”
“Come, come, Flynn.” She sat all the way up then and let the quilt fall away from her. He was relieved to see she had on a nightgown. “Don’t be in such a hurry to kick me out. The old man is sound asleep. I gave him a double dose of my special tonic. So what he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.”
“Out.” He pointed toward the door.
“You don’t really want me to leave. I know men. They like a woman in their bed.”
“Go get in the bed you made when you married Silas.”
“He’s so old.” She stood up and flipped open the window curtains to let in the moonlight. “And sick.”
“For better or worse. In sickness and health. That’s what you promised, isn’t it?”
“I’m not leaving him. I’m right here in his house.” She stepped toward him. “He just wants somebody to cook for him and take care of your daughter. For that I should get some kind of reward, don’t you think? Something more than sleeping with an old man whose hands can’t stop shaking. Poor man isn’t long for this world.”
He shifted away from her. “Go on back to your bedroom and we’ll pretend this never happened.”
She stayed where she was, her teeth showing in a smile. “Do you know much about the Bible, Flynn?”
He ignored her question. “I want you out of here right now.”
She didn’t seem bothered by his words. “In the Bible there’s this story about Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.” Her smile got wider. “I can tell by your face you do know the story. Potiphar’s wife liked Joseph and invited him to like her. He was foolish and ran away, but then Potiphar’s wife told Potiphar Joseph attacked her. I could do that too. Think of how hard Silas will take it when I tell him you forced me into your bed.”
“Tell him anything you like. Silas is no fool. He’ll know which of us to believe.”
“Are you sure? He may be old, but he’s still a man and he knows how a man can be carried away by his desires.” She gave him a long look. “I’m sure you know all about manly desires.”
“I have no desire for you, Irene. None. If you won’t leave, I will.” He grabbed his shirt and boots and headed for the door.
“Coward,” she whispered behind him. When that didn’t slow him down, she went on. “Aren’t you afraid to leave me alone with your daughter?”
He stopped and turned back toward her. “You stay away from Leatrice.”
“What’s she told you?” She laughed yet again. “Surely not that crazy story about bears.”
“What about bears?” He wanted to see what the woman might say.
“Oh, nothing.” She waved as though to shoo away his question. “Nothing at all. Just a fairy tale.”
“Where bears eat little children?” He fixed his stare on her. “Is that the kind of fairy tale you like to tell?”
“You said it. Not me.” She shrugged. “The girl needs somebody to tell her something. Silas is right that she needs a mother.”
“He was wrong to think that could be you.”
“He only married me because you wouldn’t. Perhaps in his own misguided way, he was thinking to bring you a wife and your daughter a mother before he passed on.”
“Of this you can be sure.” He narrowed his eyes and stepped a little closer to her. “I would have never married you. I will never marry you.”
Her smile didn’t waver. “Men. Such foolish creatures. Unable to realize what’s best for them.” She reached to lay her hand on his chest. “I could definitely be best for you. In so many ways.”
He shoved her hand away and moved back. “Go to bed, Irene.”
“You should be saying, ‘Come to bed, Irene.’ I could make you smile again.”
He stared at her without saying anything. He was weary of talking to her. He just wanted her out of his sight.
“Papa.” Leatrice called to him from her bedroom door. She sounded very small and frightened.
“The princess calls. Best go protect her from the bears.” Irene raised her voice on the word “bears.”
He didn’t bother responding as he went across the sitting room to Leatrice’s door. “I’m here, sweetheart. What are you doing awake?”
“I heard you talking.” She peeked around him. “Are bears here?”
“No, no bears.” He put his hand on her head. “Miss Irene was talking nonsense.” He didn’t look around to see if the woman had followed him out of his room. Better to simply ignore her.
“Bears scare me.” Leatrice’s lips quivered.
“Bears can be scary if you see them and maybe even scarier if you’re only imagining them, but no bears are around here. So you can stop imagining them.”
“How, Papa?”
“By thinking about something else whenever scary thoughts slip into your mind. Flowers or wading in a creek.”
“Or my kittens. I’d rather think about them than bears.”
“That’s the thing then.” He turned her toward her bed. “Now back under the covers. A girl needs her sleep.”
“You need sleep too, don’t you, Papa?”
“I do. So let’s get some snoring going.”
“Will you stay with me for a while?” She looked toward the window.
“No bears.” He leaned down to look her in the face. “Remember, no bears.”
“I know, but I might have a bad dream.”
“If you do, I’ll be here.” He pulled Ma Beatrice’s quilt up over her. He ran his hand over the stitching as Leatrice settled on the pillow her grandmother had stuffed with feathers.
A woman did have a way of holding things together. The right woman. Ma Beatrice would be chasing Irene out of her house with a broom. Silas had picked right the first time, but every way wrong with Irene. But this time he hadn’t married for love.
No, that wasn’t right. Silas had married for love. For the love of this child in front of Flynn. The problem was the man had rushed headlong into marriage without proper thought.
“Is Grandpa all right?” Leatrice’s eyes were very round.
“He’s asleep.”
“I don’t hear him coughing. He’s always coughing.”
“It’s good then that he’s not,” Flynn said.
“Not if he’s dead like Mamaw Bea.” Her eyes got even wider.
“He’s just sleeping.” He hoped that was so anyway. Her worries had him wanting to go shake Silas awake to be sure he was all right. Flynn glanced back through Leatrice’s door into the sitting room. No sign of Irene. That was good. He didn’t care where she was, as long as it was away from him.
“Do you like her?” The child’s lips were trembling again.
“Who? Mamaw Bea?”
Leatrice shook her head against her pillow. “Her.” She pointed toward the doorway, then clutched the edge of the quilt under her chin.
“Are you afraid of Miss Irene?” Flynn asked a question of his own instead of answering hers. Some things were better not spoken aloud.
“Not when you’re with me.”
“But what about when I’m not with you?”
She let go of the quilt and snaked a hand out to grab his arm. “Please don’t leave me here with her. By myself.”
“No worries, little one. I won’t.” He caressed her cheek. “But what has she done that has you so scared?”
; “I don’t know.” Leatrice looked down at the quilt.
He had the feeling she knew exactly why she was scared of Irene, but he didn’t push her to tell him more. “You can stay with me or Grandpa Silas. You don’t have to stay with her.”
“Grandpa is sick, isn’t he?”
“His cough is bad.” He had to be honest with her.
“Because of getting cold when I went out on the pond? Did that make him sick?”
“He was already coughing before that.”
“Maybe he needs some medicine.”
“Don’t worry about him.” Flynn smoothed back her hair. “Miss Irene makes him tonics.”
“I don’t think they help.” She bit her bottom lip as if worried she’d said something she shouldn’t have.
“Why do you say that?”
She pulled in a breath and let it whoosh out. “Don’t tell her I told you, but last week when I was filling up our glasses from the water bucket, I saw her mixing some stuff in Grandpa’s tonic.”
“Stuff?” Flynn frowned. “What stuff?”
“I don’t know. Black powdery stuff that smelled awful. She said it was a secret ingredient to make Grandpa better.” Leatrice sneaked another look past Flynn toward the doorway. She lowered her voice to a whisper. “She told me not to tell anybody, since secret ingredients won’t work if people know about them. But I’m telling you, not Grandpa. So it could still work if she was telling the truth. Do you think she was telling the truth?”
“Maybe.”
“I don’t think she was. When she wasn’t looking, I put my finger in some of the powder she spilled and touched it to my tongue. It was nasty.”
“Medicines don’t always taste good.”
“But this was worse than that. I had to run outside to throw up. When I came back in, that woman laughed like she knew what I had done and was glad I got sick.”
Flynn wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to make Leatrice even more frightened of Irene, but then again perhaps she should be. It could be they all should be. He took Leatrice’s hand in his. “But you’re all right now.”
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