“Have you ever been ice skating before?”
Ruby laughed. “Of course not.”
“Well, that’s about to change.”
Her eyes grew wide. As they rounded another bend, the lake came into view, swirling with color as skaters glided over the ice.
“But I don’t have any skates!”
“You do now.” Edward pulled out a box and let her open it. She gasped, and satisfaction uncurled inside him. God willing, this was only the start of what he could give Ruby, and the very least of it, at that.
Moments later, Biggs dropped them off and promised to be back in an hour to pick them up. Edward and Ruby exchanged their shoes for skates, and ventured out onto the ice.
Ruby wobbled, and Edward pulled her hand into the crook of his elbow. “Lean on me,” he said. She started to pull away, but a small child whisked past her at full speed, providentially sending her back to his arm. “I don’t bite.” He smiled. “Just walk for now.”
Her steps were wooden as she clutched his blue wool greatcoat.
“Why don’t you try like this. Step, and slide. Step, slide. Step, slide.”
She bent over to watch her feet, but her skirt obscured her vision.
“Don’t overthink it, now. Keep your chin up and just walk with me. Look straight ahead, or look at me. I can lead you.”
“Like a shepherd leads his sheep, aye?”
“No.” Edward’s pulse double-timed. “Not like a shepherd. Not anymore.”
Ruby met his dark, shining eyes and saw in them something she hadn’t seen before. His smile was slow and gentle. When he placed his hand over hers, she did not want to pull away.
“Just walk with me. Let’s see where it takes us, shall we?”
Ruby’s heart stirred, cautiously wiggling against the walls of its cocoon.
“Look over there.” Edward nodded to a boy pushing an earmuffed girl from behind. Her skates didn’t steer, but etched their protest into the ice. “I promise not to push you. Now. Do you see that?”
Edward cocked his head another direction. His scarf flying, a young man in a Russian shapka and greatcoat skated backwards, grasping the hands of a young lady who awkwardly tried to keep up with him, despite her long skirts and full-length cloak.
“I promise not to pull you. It doesn’t work very well and it’s selfish. I just want to walk beside you, Ruby. Will you walk with me?”
Ruby hesitated.
“By the way, you’re already doing it.” He squeezed her hand. “No, don’t look down. You’re doing fine. Keep looking up.”
Her heart fluttered against her corset. “I can’t tell if you’re talking about ice skating or life itself! I’m a simple girl. Speak plain or I may miss it completely.”
“Fair enough. But I believe I’ll stand still for this, if you don’t mind.” His smile wobbled, and he spun around to hold her mittened hands in his. In the edges of her vision, boys and girls, men and women skated in orbit around them. Some had the grace of natural athletes. Some sprawled onto the ice, which was what Ruby felt like doing as her ankles turned to jelly.
“You’re right,” Edward began. “I’m not just talking about ice skating. I’m talking about us. I—I don’t want to just be your Bible study teacher anymore. Or the person whose house you happen live in.” A lump bobbed in his throat while Ruby waited, pulse pounding in her ears.
“Who do you want to be?” She could barely breathe.
“I realize you’re still in mourning, but I feel it’s only fair that I make known my intentions. I promise you, they are honorable.”
“What are you saying, exactly?”
“I’m saying—” His sigh froze in the air between them. He looked stripped. “I’m asking if you’ll walk with me. I won’t push you or pull you. Lean on me. Let’s see where God leads us, together. I am hopeful it may one day lead to our union. One day.”
Ruby swayed, and Edward circled his arm around her waist from the side. Her knees gave way and she braced herself for the cold, inglorious impact of her rear end to the ice. Instead, Edward caught her beneath her arms from behind and swooped her back up to stand. Humiliating!
But Edward beamed. “Does this mean I swept you off your feet?”
She laughed with him and shook her head. Edward Goodrich was like no other man she’d ever met before. So kind, genuine, godly. His sincerity captured her.
But her past crawled up behind her, stabbing her hope. The darkness. The odors of poverty and lust. Rough hands all over her bare skin. Sweaty hulk crushing the life out of her. She was done with all of that. But if she were joined to Edward, would her past somehow poison him, too?
“I’m not good enough for the likes of you.” Her eyes and throat burned.
“Don’t say that, Ruby, not ever again.”
“You deserve a woman who can give you her whole heart. Not just the remnant shreds.”
His eyes glazed. “I know you’ve had a tough life, one that I fail to fathom. But I also know God can heal your hurt and someday, your heart will be whole again.”
Ruby searched for condemnation in his face, but did not find it. If he knew it all, he would condemn me indeed. “I’m not proud of who I was before I met you. The things I’ve done—”
“I’m not your confessor. That’s between you and God and none of my business, unless you decide to tell me. We are all sinners saved by grace. We are all adopted into the family of God when not one of us deserved it.”
She closed her eyes, let the wind caress her face. She had thought she was done with men completely. But perhaps …
“We are fellow sojourners through this life. You and me. And Aiden too.”
Aiden. The boy could not ask for a better father than Edward Goodrich. How better to mold the lad than for him to have a proper family, with a proper man at the head of it?
“Well?” Edward grew serious again. “What do you say?”
A smile warmed Ruby’s face. Perhaps this was the answer to prayers she had not even dared to utter. ’Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far and Grace will lead me home. Amazing Grace indeed.
She looped her hand through his arm. “Can we take it slow?” Very slow.
Edward nodded, eyes shining. “I’m ready when you are.”
And Ruby O’Flannery took a step.
Outside Dalton, Georgia
Wednesday, December 23, 1863
Stomping his tingling feet, Noah turned his gaze south— toward Atlanta—as he sat on a tree stump eating salt pork and beans. The sustenance he craved, however, was word from home.
Winter raked its fingers through camp, stirring the campfires, scraping Noah’s face, and cooling the potato coffee swirling in his tin cup. Every fiber of his being yearned to return to Ana. Noah had joined the army to protect her, but the army wasn’t protecting anybody. And now Susan was with Ana, probably manipulating her the way she’d manipulated him.
“Acktung, Herr Becker!” Ross jogged up to Noah, a merciful distraction. “Would you biddie be so kind? Never learned my letters, myself, but it looks like the missus found someone to pen a letter to me jes’ the same. Biddie.”
“Of course.” Noah nestled his cup into a bed of pine needles.
“Donkey.”
“Bitte.” Noah chuckled under his breath at the man’s crude German pronunciation. He began to read. “Dear husband, Well, me and kids are in a fine kettle of fish. The money you was paid to fight goes only so far now that flour is two hundred dollars a barrel, and a cord of wood is forty dollars. That rich man who hired you to do his fightin’ hasn’t come by to check on us at all, when he told you he would make sure we was fine. Can’t you get off on furlough to come chop wood to see us through the winter? Ain’t nobody else going to do it for me, and I know it don’t seem right to say it in a letter, but I’m in the family way again and too weak to handle the axe myself.”
“Did she just say–”
Noah nodded, smiling. “Congratulations. How many will it make?”
&
nbsp; Ross rubbed his hand over his beard. “Kitty and I got five young ’uns already. Jeb’s the oldest at fourteen, and the youngest is two. I s’pose it’s about time for another, then, isn’t it? Go on now, keep reading.”
“Jeb says he’ll do it but with only one good eye you know he’ll cut his own foot off before he’d strike the wood. Write soon, and deliver it yourself for Christmas. As long as you ain’t fightin’ over winter, you may as well be put to good use at home. Your loving wife, Kitty.”
Ross’s eyelids hooded whatever he was feeling as he took the letter back from Noah. “You know something? I got a mighty hankering to go to meeting tonight. Care to join me?” Ross nodded to the log chapel the men had constructed. Almost every night a chaplain or pastor from a surrounding town had preached or led prayer services for the soldiers. It had become so crowded that the men eventually took off the side walls of the chapel to accommodate everyone who wanted to attend.
“Hain’t you been to one yet?” Ross prodded. “It would do you a heap o’ good, Herr Becker, to be in the presence of God.”
Noah sighed, the crisp air burning his throat as much as the wood smoke. “To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’m good enough company for the Almighty right now.”
“Well if that ain’t just the dumbest thing I ever heard.” He laughed. “He’s on your side, you know.”
Noah eyed him warily. “Do you mean he’s on the side of the Confederacy?”
Ross waved the smoke out of his face. “I’m not talking about war—unless you want to talk about the battle for your spirit. What I mean is God is rooting for the sinner to be saved by grace. And He’s cheering for the saints to persevere through trials. So if you don’t know God, He wants to meet you. If you do know Him, He sure would like to spend time with you. See? Either way, He’s on your side, just like I said. Now let’s go. We’ll bring our families with us in prayer.”
Late that night, with Ross snoring on the other side of their crude two-person cabin, Noah could not sleep. His pine needle mattress rustled as he rolled onto his side and stared at the embers glowing in the fireplace.
The preacher had chosen Matthew 11:28–30 as his text for the message. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me … For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.
Noah Becker was heavy laden, indeed. What’s happening at home? Since we have not been able to keep the Yankees out, even with the help of the mountains, how can we hope to keep them out of the rest of Georgia? And there wasn’t a thing he could do about any of it right now.
Lord, he prayed. I want that rest You offer. My soul is so weary. Help me find rest in You. There was much more to pray about, he knew. But for now, he let the words of the hymn they sang tonight wash over him as he drifted off to sleep.
Fear not, I am with thee, oh! be not dismayed,
I–I am thy God, and will still give thee aid …
Atlanta, Georgia
Thursday, December 24, 1863
Susan Kent leaned against a lamppost on the corner of Marietta and Peachtree Streets, the cold reaching its fingers through her thin shawl and wrapping deliciously around her spine. It felt so good to feel something—anything—aside from the usual hunger.
The day before Christmas, downtown Atlanta whirled with State and Confederate government officials, soldiers, women, and children running wild. People pointed at storefronts decorated with pine boughs, and pranced out of shops carrying boxes and bags full of untold treasures. Susan didn’t need to know what was in them in order to want them for herself. Whatever it was, it was new. New! The word itself was a tonic.
Before the war, she never could have strolled about the city unchaperoned. Now, however, the rules of propriety were bending, and she was bending with them. The crowd milling about on the corner quieted as a gentleman drove his horse and carriage down the street. The sunlight gleamed on his spotless white silk suit, blazed from diamonds on his fingers. Susan was nearly blinded by the light, but could not look away. Only vaguely did she hear the jeers being hurled at him, denouncing him as a speculator. So what if he was? It was hypnotizing, this vision of wealth, all the more since it looked entirely out of place.
He stopped his four-thousand-dollar carriage right next to her, and the rest of the crowd fell away from her vision entirely. “How do you do?” He tipped his hat to her. His blond hair was neatly pomaded into place.
“Charmed, I’m sure.” She batted her eyes at him, as naturally as drawing breath.
His broad smile flashed in the winter sun. “Are you not ashamed to be seen talking to me? Do you not think it a crime to be rich during a war?”
“A crime to be rich?” She tilted her head. “Why, I see no criminal here. Only a man with ambition, a man who knows what he wants. And how to get it. The rest of us would do well to follow your example.” She winked brazenly.
His eyebrows arched, and something uncurled inside her. The game was on. “Zeke Murphy’s the name. Can I give you a lift somewhere?” Her eyes brightened as he climbed down to help her up into the carriage and onto the bench beside him. It was scandalous, riding with a strange man like this. But then, she had courted scandal before.
“I’m Susan Kent.” She settled herself beside him. “I have some shopping to do at the Richards Brothers’ bookstore.” She would start small, and see what she could accomplish. She’d been out of practice for some time now.
“That isn’t far at all.” He smiled down at her, heat radiating from his body into hers. If her stepmother could see her right now she’d either slap her up one side and down the other or lunge for her smelling salts.
But her stepmother was not here. Neither was her father, nor Sophie, the half-sister who had nudged Susan from the center of her father’s affections. She was free of them yet. Free of Noah. Free of clinging Ana.
To think, her original plan after being forced out of Chattanooga was to return to Richmond and beg her father’s charity. But as they had not parted well, Susan didn’t think it likely he would welcome her home. If time had not weakened his resolve against Susan, however, perhaps the sight of a hungry granddaughter would. A granddaughter he didn’t even know he had. Perhaps her family would even grow to love Ana, even if Susan hadn’t. If they would but take them into their mansion, Susan would never again know hunger or want of any kind.
Neither would she know the arms of another man. Once ensconced again in her parents’ home, Susan felt sure no man would come calling, if there were any men left to be had at all. Even if they did, Father would not let them in.
This was the thought that had stalled her. This was what pulled her to Atlanta’s bustling downtown for hours at a time. If Susan could just find a suitable beau, she would gladly choose him over the dogmatic rule of her father. And Ana could stay with Noah—assuming he ever came home. The girl simply held no charms for her.
Soon they were outside the Book, Music, and Fancy Store, and Zeke was helping her out of the carriage. When his broad hands lingered on her waist just a touch too long, her imagination took flight.
Inside, the store fairly choked on shoppers intent on finding just the right gift. When they saw Zeke, however, they parted for him. When his hand pressed against the small of Susan’s back to guide her to the counter, they stared at her too, scowls slashed on their faces. No matter. She was not invisible anymore.
The store owner, Sam Richards, broke off his conversation with a different patron and hastily approached Zeke and Susan. “Are you two—together?”
“Yes,” replied Zeke, and the word rippled through Susan.
“Well then, would the lady be interested in a novel for Christmas? Les Miserables, Great Expectations, Macaria? Macaria just came out, and it’s written by Georgia-native Augusta Jane Evans, a very thrilling and patriotic choice if I may say so!”
“Yes, fine. I’ll take that one if you please.”
“Excellent. That will be two dollars.”
&nbs
p; Susan reached inside her shawl, fished dramatically around in her pockets.
“Allow me, Miss Kent.”
“Oh, I couldn’t!”
“I insist. Do I look like a man who cannot afford a two-dollar book? Especially one backed in—” He turned the volume over in his hand. “Wallpaper?”
The shopkeeper winced. “All the Southern presses are doing it, sir. Saves our precious resources.”
“Indeed.”
“Will that be all?”
Susan paused. “Mr. Murphy, I can reimburse you just as soon as—”
“Nonsense. What’s your pleasure? Anything.”
She could not believe her ears. Why, this was far too easy! A price tag attached to a set of twelve bound volumes asked for three hundred dollars.
“That.” She pointed to it. “It isn’t too much, is it?”
Zeke rolled his eyes. “We’ll take it. And now, my dear, I’d like to take you for some real shopping. That is, unless you’ve got a beau waiting for you somewhere? Dalton, perhaps? Virginia?”
She giggled and shook her head, bouncing the loose curls by her face as she did so.
“Splendid.” He paid for the transaction and offered his arm, which she eagerly accepted. “Have you ever had a fairy godmother? Or godfather?” He grinned, and a dimple popped into his left cheek.
Her eyes grew wide.
“Would you like to know what it’s like to have one? I’d love to see you out of those rags and into something better suited to you.”
A new dress? Such a personal gift coming from a man, let alone a stranger! “Bu-But you don’t know me at all!”
“Haven’t you noticed? I’ve got money to burn. I don’t care where you came from, who your parents are, whether you can embroider or paint or form flowers out of wax. All I care about is that you’re here right now. Let’s gather our rosebuds while we may, shall we?”
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