He pulled her into the bedroom by her jacket sleeve and closed the door. There was just enough force in his grip to trigger her self-defense training. In one swift motion, she yanked loose and lodged her knee into his crotch. A muted cough of agony escaped his throat as he crumbled to the floor.
Bailey straightened her jacket. “Don’t grab me.”
Justin wheezed from his curled position on the carpet. “What is wrong with you?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.”
She looked around the room while Justin recovered. A student desk bowed under the weight of triplet computer screens. A neat stack of military-issued technical manuals covered the nightstand beside his perfectly made twin bed. An extension cord and eerie hum streamed from beneath the closet door.
Justin’s bedroom was a computer-hacking teenaged boy’s dream. Why was a clean-cut thirty-year-old man living in it?
Red-faced, he raised himself in rigid movements, first to all fours and then he stood half-erect with his hands propped on his thighs. “This isn’t a job interview for a street gang. Why did you do that?”
“Reflex. You grabbed me.”
He blew out a long breath and lumbered to the desk. “Don’t do it again.”
“Keep your hands off me and you won’t have to worry about it.”
“Fine. Truce?”
“Truce.” Bailey glanced at the artificial light seeping around the cracks of the closet door. Probably grow lights but for what? Pot? Surely the former serviceman hadn’t lured her with the offer of a research job just to help him grow his stash. She pointed at the closet. “What are you growing in there?”
Justin pressed his hand against an electronic device Bailey didn’t recognize and logged into his computer. “Keep your voice down.”
“What type of plant specimen do you need me to analyze?”
“My mom keeps herself heavily medicated, but I don’t want her to hear anything. If she finds out I’m growing something in here, she will assume it is marijuana and want some.”
“Is it pot?”
“Don’t be stupid. Why would PharmaTech want weed? Or Global?”
“Global wants what you’re growing?” She took a step toward the closet. “What is it?”
Justin reached for her but quickly withdrew his hand. “Sit down and shut up for a minute.”
Bailey gave the room a mock appraisal. “Where? I don’t see any other—” Before she could say chairs, a satellite map appeared on one screen and data scrolled on the others faster than she could read it. Coordinates, atmospheric conditions, and military code she didn’t understand. “What is all that?”
“I’ll pay you twice your normal fee for a full molecular analysis of the saplings in my closet.”
Bailey sat on the edge of the twin bed. The covers were tight enough to bounce a coin off. This whole situation felt odd, but the information flashing across the screens validated his offer. She crossed her arms. “Done.”
“You have to stay here until you’re finished.”
“You don’t have the equipment I need.”
“I will get it. Once I show you the saplings, you can’t leave.”
This wasn’t the first time a man had tried to trap her in a bedroom. She shot to her feet and started for the door. “I’m out of here.”
“Wait!” Justin stood too. When she turned back, he pointed at the closet. “If you knew where those plants were from and what they are capable of, you wouldn’t walk out.”
“Why did you send my ancestors’ history to Timothy Van Buskirk?”
“I have to know I can trust you. And him.”
“Yesterday you said you chose me for this project because you assumed from my last name you could trust me.”
“Say you will stay here. I don’t want you telling Van Buskirk anything yet, but we might need his connections.”
“I’m not moving in with you.”
Justin raised both palms. “At least leave your phone here at night.”
“No way. Either you trust me or you don’t.”
He let out a frustrated groan and paced to the closet. After a long moment of standing with his arms crossed in front of the closet door, he looked up as if an idea had come to him. He uncrossed his arms and pointed at her. “Fine. But you’d better keep your mouth shut.”
The glare of ultraviolet light and hum of a water pump grew as he opened the door. Two reflective car sunblock shades hung inside the closet door. He peeled them back and gave her a blinding view of the potted tree saplings growing inside his closet. “Bailey Colburn, meet the gray leaf tree.”
Chapter Ten
Sophia paused with her feet still on the street’s cobblestones and her hand on the wooden gate in front of the Ashton House. She never hesitated passing through that gate back when it led to her grandparents’ happy home. Now the house belonged to Alice.
She must think of the children. The twins toddling inside the house would need their aunt’s comfort and friendship as they grew up. Little Clyde and Vera would need the guidance of an emotionally stable adult. They needed her in their lives.
Alice’s shrill voice leaked out an open sash window. That discordant sound had berated Sophia, taunted her, lied to her since birth. She almost turned and walked away. No, Clyde and Vera needed to know they had an aunt who cared about them, despite what Alice might say.
After giving a polite nod to a family driving their buckboard past, she pushed open the gate and ascended the shadowy steps to the front door. Though she’d lived in the house with Alice and Hubert and the babies before taking the job with Lydia, Sophia knew better than to let herself in this early in the morning.
She raised her knuckle to the door, but it was jerked open before she could knock.
Alice slapped a frayed dishtowel over her shoulder and propped a dictatorial fist on her bony hip. “Don’t stand there like a mindless ninny. Get in here and help me with these brats.” She stomped between the toddlers, who were playing on the parlor floor, and disappeared into the kitchen. “Hubert has started leaving for the mill before I’m up in the mornings and coming home long after dark. I don’t get a moment’s rest with these two squawking like they do.”
The only person squawking was Alice.
Clyde and Vera stared up at Sophia with slobbery smiles and identical blue eyes. “My darlings,” she cooed as she stepped over a toy horse and picked up Vera’s rag doll. She knelt to play, but Alice charged back into the parlor, disheveled hair flopping. “So are you moving back in or not?”
“Moving back here?” Sophia glanced around the parlor. Barely a trace of her beloved grandparents remained. Her grandmother’s rocking chair cowered by the front window. Tattered pieces of its cane back gnarled in disrepair. Her grandfather’s Davenport desk, which had been in the family since the founders came to the Land, hid nervously in the corner, covered in clutter and scratches.
That desk was supposed to be hers someday.
In a few short years, her sister had disregarded everything their grandparents had worked to build. Anything under Alice’s control was in danger. By the grace of God, Sophia had escaped before Alice could ruin her spirit too. “No, I’m not moving back.”
“Well, you haven’t come here in weeks, so what was I supposed to think about you showing up here uninvited?” Alice’s expression hardened as if some dark thought delighted her. She affected her voice with a mocking tone. “Let me guess… you’re here because that lady doctor doesn’t want you anymore. Couldn’t last the three month trial period, could you?”
A familiar knot clenched Sophia’s belly and rose with a white-hot pain until it reached her throat. She smoothed her niece’s untamed curls. “I came to see Vera and Clyde.”
“That figures.” Alice waved the dishtowel erratically as she spoke. “So you care to see them but not me?”
“What? No. Alice, please don’t do this.”
“Do what?” she questioned with a snap of the dishtowel. “You never come to see me
.”
Sophia found her voice and stood. “My work keeps me busy.”
“Ah yes, your work. You’re so important, aren’t you?”
Sophia glanced down at Vera and Clyde, who were toddling across the hardwood floor, habituated to Alice’s yelling. There had to be a way to visit her niece and nephew without these dramatics. Sophia pressed her fingers to her temples. “When I moved to the medical cottage, you promised you’d start taking the twins to church. Why weren’t you there on Sunday or any Sunday for that matter?”
“That Colburn girl was getting married and I don’t like weddings.”
“Bethany and Everett’s wedding was after the morning service. Even if you didn’t want to stay for the wedding, you could have attended the morning church service. You should have come to both.”
“I don’t know those people.”
“You would if you left the house once in a while.”
Alice tossed the abused dishtowel to the floor, her face flushing. “How dare you come into my home and tell me how to live?”
The prick in Sophia’s throat felt as though she’d swallowed a fishhook. She drew a slow breath, but it did nothing to ameliorate her pain. “That’s not what I meant. Bethany and Everett’s wedding was a beautiful ceremony. The day before the wedding, I got to help decorate the chapel. I’d never seen so many flowers in one place. You would have enjoyed it. You should have taken the twins.”
“I wouldn’t have belonged there.”
“Not so. You would have been welcome at the wedding. Bethany is the village overseer’s daughter and my friend. I live on the Colburn property. They’ve become like family to me.”
“So the Colburns are your family now? Is that it?”
“I wish.” The words escaped Sophia’s lips before she could stop them, but it felt good. “The Colburns are the kindest people I’ve ever known. If it had been your wedding, they would have been there with gifts in hand.”
“Oh, then why don’t you leave us alone and stay with your precious Colburns forever?”
“First you complain that I never come to see you, and now you tell me to stay away.” She hated arguing, but with every retort, the fishhook lessened its grip inside her. “I should be working right now. I made the effort to come here instead.”
Alice’s mocking air returned. “You always thought you were better than me. You thought you were better than all of us, but Father and Mother were right: you’ll never amount to anything. You always had your head in the clouds. Always out in the yard, playing with your little plants, daydreaming some nonsense. Now you’re playing with the gray leaf to pay for your board. It’s not real work. I work hard raising these two.” She flicked her wrist at the twins. “Try minding a family. That’s real work.”
“My work is valid.” Somehow her words had lost their force. “I’m assisting Dr. Bradshaw with research that might help save lives someday.”
“Yeah, right. You save lives? Ha!” Alice raised her pointy chin and laughed. Her intonation pitched exactly like their father’s always had. “You sure think a lot of yourself.”
Sophia bristled. “You are just like Father!”
“And you are—” Alice cut herself short and her countenance changed. Her features softened and a wicked smile curved her lips. “And you are not.”
Glad to hear she wasn’t like their father, Sophia released the breath she’d gathered for a bold reply. “No. No, I’m not.”
“And you know why you’re nothing like him?” Alice crept forward, brandishing the same face their mother had before she would swat them. “Because you aren’t his child. Mother told me so before she left.”
Sophia searched her sister’s gratified smirk. It wasn’t the first time Alice had lambasted her with an audacious lie, hoping for tears. It worked when Sophia was younger but not anymore. Now, she knew how to peel the satisfaction from her sister’s face. “If that were true, I’d be fine with it. I’d rather not be his child than live like him in bitter misery the way you do. It’s no wonder Hubert works as far from home as possible.”
“Leave my husband out of this.” Alice dropped back a step, seething. “In fact, just get out. Get out of this house and never come back. You’re not welcome here!”
“Very well!” Sophia stabbed a finger at the Davenport buried in the parlor’s corner. “But I’m taking my desk.”
“Your desk?”
“Yes. Grandfather promised it to me.”
“Have it. It’s the only thing you’ll get from this house,” Alice shot back as she marched to the desk and started flinging clutter from its top. A pair of sewing sheers landed blade open between the children.
Sophia scooped Vera off the floor and as she held a hand out to Clyde, Alice snatched him up.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Alice said, yanking both children away from Sophia. The toddlers began to cry as she hauled them out of the parlor. She yelled over their cries, “And if you want that desk you’d better get it out of my house before I’m done putting these two down for their morning nap.”
Sophia wanted to take the children out of the house more than the desk. She wanted to cover her ears and run outside like she did when her parents fought. She wanted to clobber Alice on her hateful mouth for every vile word she’d ever uttered. Instead, she ignored the hook in her throat and slid the rocking chair out of the way to salvage one piece of Ashton family history.
Mahogany wood and multiple side drawers added weight to the compact writing desk. She gripped the front cabriole legs and inched the desk away from the wall. The babies’ cries streamed down the hallway, broken only by Alice’s nonsensical ranting.
Sophia tugged on the heavy desk, ignoring the burn in her shoulders and the tears in her eyes. She had to get the desk outside before Alice returned to the parlor. She would not lose this chance, nor would she let Alice see her cry. Not ever again.
One of the desk’s ornate feet caught on a crevice in the hardwood floor. Sophia reached for the edge of the desk to lift it. The desktop opened on its hinge. She peeked in the compartment. Papers marked with her grandfather’s handwriting quivered inside. She quickly closed the lifting top and with renewed vigor, pulled the desk to the entryway. Holding the door open with her backside, she bent her knees and yanked the desk’s legs over the threshold, one at a time.
The front door banged shut behind her. She leaned onto the desk to catch her breath. A horse and rider passed the house, but she didn’t look. Hoofbeats clip-clopped across the cobblestones, fading down the road.
She had to get the desk out to the street and then somehow to the medical cottage. It would fit nicely in the corner of her bedroom. She tried to think of the papers inside the desk and anticipated the thrill of reading her grandfather’s private letters, but Alice’s hateful words echoed in her mind.
As she descended the three stone steps, her ankle turned. She steadied herself before hitting the ground. If she couldn’t get along with her sister or spend time with her niece and nephew or keep herself from crying, the least she could do was stand upright.
A farm wagon rumbled to a stop on the street in front of the house. She hoped her stumble had gone unseen and took a deep breath as she tried to figure out how to move the desk down the steps without it crushing her. Reaching up, she gave the desk a test pull. It barely budged.
The wooden gate at the street slapped open and footsteps rapidly approached. “Let me help you with that.” Nicholas came from behind her, dust and bits of hay grass clinging to his work clothes.
She turned her face away so he might not notice her sadness. “How very kind.”
He climbed the steps and pushed his sleeves past his forearms. “Where are you taking it?” he asked as he carried the desk down the steps as easily as she would carry a book.
“To my room,” the lump had yet to release from her throat, “in the medical cottage.”
Two crisp lines formed between his dark brows. “Sophia, what’s wrong?”
Her chin tighte
ned and took her lower lip with it. There was no way she could speak stoically now. She hid her face with both hands.
Before a tear fell, he abandoned the desk to comfort her. His wide palms cradled her shoulders. “Let me help.” He was close enough she could feel his breath on her hands. He kept his voice quiet as if knowing the cause of her trouble was near. “Whatever has happened, I’ll fix it. Tell me what you need.”
If Alice saw them, she would make a cringe-worthy scene. Sophia had to compose herself. No matter she’d been insulted and estranged and embarrassed, she was not helpless. Not in Good Springs. Not here where people valued generosity and tradition and kindness. Not here in the hands of a man who genuinely cared for her.
She cleared her raw throat. “I have to get this desk off my sister’s property before she comes outside. It’s rightfully mine, but she might stop me.”
“Consider it done.” Nicholas released her and picked up the desk. She dashed to the gate and held it open as he carried the desk to the back of the wagon. He glanced toward the house. “Did you have a quarrel with your sister?”
“I’ve spent my whole life in a quarrel with my sister. I’m tired of it.” She tucked loose strands back into her chignon and brushed the dust from her skirt. “I’m breaking free.”
A quick grin curved one edge of his mouth, but he said nothing. He set the desk on the ground and began removing the desk drawers—four from one side and four from the other. He lifted his chin at a coil of rope in the wagon bed. She pulled it out of the way and awaited his next wordless instruction. With swift movements, he effortlessly hoisted the desk onto the wagon and replaced the paper-filled drawers.
Though she should have been scampering up to the wagon bench, she stayed at the side of the wagon watching him—his powerful arms, his stubble-covered jaw, his gentle sureness. He clapped the tailgate shut and latched it. “Let’s get you home.”
“Home,” she repeated on a breath as she followed him around the wagon. She glanced back at Alice’s house. “What an ungodly mess.”
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