She had thought she had lost all reasons for fighting and carrying on. Temperance had a reason now.
Her body was scarred. Her back, while healed, was covered in thick, raised scars and because of the abuse she had suffered so intensely, there was always an ache or a pain that plagued her. Neither of those things compared to the emptiness and blackness in her soul. There was nothing there, or hadn’t been until the very moment she had accepted that she was going to be a mother.
Someone needed her and Temperance would be there for this tiny life inside of her. She might not be able to be there with her complete mind, body and soul but this child would be cared for and raised with everything that Temperance could possibly give them.
“I’ve decided to keep the baby,” Temperance confided in Wilma, Sophia, who was sixteen and Wilma’s niece, and Felix the night she had made her decision.
“I’m happy that’s the decision you reached,” Wilma admitted. “There has been too much loss lately to add any more to that list.”
“We’ll help you anyway we can,” Sophia added, her teeth contrasting sharply with her dark skin as she smiled. “You won’t have to take care of it alone.”
Temperance nodded, grateful for her friends. Sarah and Millie were already in bed asleep but Temperance counted them among her friends despite their young ages. They reminded her of her sisters, albeit slightly older versions, and she cared about them deeply, or as deeply as she allowed herself to care about anyone these days.
“I’m leaving tomorrow to go see Tanner,” Felix spoke up, rubbing at his rough, whiskered chin, “Should I tell him?”
Temperance shook her head roughly. “No. You can tell him I’m doing fine, but nothing else. I don’t want him to know.”
Felix frowned. “Temperance, the man deserves to know. He’s sent you a letter each month I’ve visited him and you’ve yet to send him any word in return. It ain’t right, darlin’.”
Temperance swallowed hard and stared into the firelight. Felix made a trip once a month to visit Tanner at the prison and each month he returned with a letter. Temperance had read the first three and then had stopped. It was simply too painful to read words of love from a man she would never see again, a man who was locked away for a quarter century. It was better to save herself the pain, and save him the pain of realizing she was carrying another man’s child, and simply think of him as dead.
“Please, Felix, for me just keep this between us,” Temperance begged.
“I don’t like lying to him…” Felix countered.
“But you’re not. You’re simply not telling him something… You’re omitting a small detail.”
“Small?” Wilma inquired skeptically.
Temperance frowned. “Please. This is important to me. I don’t want Tanner knowing. I don’t want to think about him anymore and I don’t want to care so please can you just do what I ask and stop bringing him up?”
Temperance’s tone was even and without anger, anger took too much energy. She stood from her chair and walked to the door intent on hiding herself away in her room until dawn.
“Child?” Wilma called out and Temperance stopped but did not turn. “May I ask why?”
Temperance laid her hand over her stomach. “Because Tanner is gone and I cannot do this if I’m thinking of him. He’s not coming back… I always knew I’d lose him. I lose everyone.”
***
Tanner saw Felix coming toward the table and he raised his shackled hands in greeting.
“They’re keeping ya shackled still?” Felix asked.
“I’m a cold-blooded murderer, Felix,” Tanner reminded him. He realized that the man seemed off today somehow. He didn’t have that usual smile on his wrinkled face. “Is something wrong?”
Felix sighed. “I just don’t like seeing you locked up in here. You don’t deserve it.”
“The law says I do,” Tanner shrugged. “No point worrying about it now.”
“Are you really okay?” Felix asked skeptically.
Tanner could tell the man the truth. He could tell Felix that, no, he wasn’t okay. He could have told him the nightmares were worse now that he was confined within the prison walls. He could have told him that on nights he managed to fall asleep he woke up screaming and covered in a cold sweat. He could have let Felix know about the way the walls seemed to be closing in on him and most days Tanner was barely holding on to his sanity…
But what good would that do?
“I’m just fine, Felix. This place is paradise compared to a few other places I’ve called home.”
“I got word from Patrick Starr. He talked to the Governor about your pardon and…”
“It’s not gonna happen,” Tanner finished for him. “I didn’t think he’d grant me one.”
Felix sighed. “But Patrick seems sure he can get your sentence reduced. He’s working that angle now.”
“That’s nice.” Tanner tapped the table impatiently. “How is Temperance?”
Felix shifted in his seat and diverted his gaze. Tanner felt uneasiness fill him. “She’s doin’ just fine,” Felix replied quickly.
“Are you sure?” Tanner asked. “Is she sleeping? Eating?”
“Yes…”
Tanner could tell that Felix was lying and he could also tell there was more the man was holding back, “Tell me what you’re not telling me, Felix.”
“She told me to tell you that she doesn’t wish for you to write her any more letters.”
Tanner felt as if he’d been punched in the gut. He had told her so much in those letters and while he’d never received one in return he had hoped that was simply because she didn’t know what to say.
“Why?” he whispered around the lump in his throat.
“It was simply what she wanted, sir.”
“Did she send me anything?”
Felix shook his head. “No…”
Tanner stood and walked back to the door without a word. The guards led him back to his cell and he flopped down on his cot and stared at the ceiling.
Temperance was kicking him from her life. She didn’t seem to even want his friendship. His light, his hope, the reason he had truly decided change had to happen had simply turned her back on him. Through everything he had ever been through in his life, Tanner realized that he had never truly understood the term ‘dead inside’ until this very moment.
Chapter Thirty
Five Years Later
Sunlight.
A breeze.
Light unobstructed by bars and movement unhindered by shackle or chains.
Tanner was a free man.
Five years, he’d been locked in that prison. Five years of watching his back, wondering if he’d be murdered in his sleep and fighting tooth and nail to hold on to some semblance of sanity as those walls had grown in a bit more each day.
Now that was over.
Patrick Starr had done his job well and had gotten twenty years taken off Tanner’s sentence. He’d found a judge who had also been a Confederate Soldier and used that, plus the truth of who Trevor had been to win Tanner’s freedom.
“So where are you going to go now, Tanner? Back to Georgia?” Patrick asked as Tanner climbed up into the man’s cart and sat down upon the seat.
Tanner squinted and stared out over the horizon.
It was a looming question. Where was he going to go? Tanner hadn’t spoken to anyone from the plantation since Felix had told him that Temperance didn’t wish to have anymore contact with him.
Felix had come several times during that first year, but Tanner would always refuse to see him and finally the old man had given up. It had simply been too painful for Tanner to know that Felix had been seeing Temperance every day and yet, he could not. It had been too painful to know that Felix had been hiding something from him because Tanner was certain the man had been. There was something Temperance didn’t want him to know, some reason why the woman had pushed him away, and Tanner wanted to know what it was.
Not even Patrick
Starr would say. But… Patrick had also been true to his word and not told Temperance or anyone else at the plantation that Tanner was getting out early.
There was only one place that Tanner knew he had to go and that was to that plantation. Regardless of the pain that Temperance had put him through his heart still cried out for her.
He had to see her. He had to know why she had done what she had done. He needed to know for himself that she was okay; that she was healing, coping, and moving past what had been done to her. Tanner cared more about her than he did himself and the pain that would undoubtedly come if she had moved on with someone else.
He looked over at the middle-aged man beside him and nodded, “Yeah, Patrick. Yeah, I believe I’m heading back to Georgia. Reckon I can hitch a ride with you?”
“Of course, Tanner. You going back to the plantation?”
Tanner nodded. “You know I am.”
“Temperance has been running it pretty decent since you left. She downsized it a bit and doesn’t grow quite as much, but still enough to turn a hefty profit each year.”
Hearing her name aloud like that caused Tanner’s heart to constrict in his chest. “What else has she been doing?” Tanner asked quietly.
Patrick flicked the reins and got the cart moving down the road. “I think it’d be best if you found that out when you got there, Tanner.”
“Is she married?” Tanner whispered, barely able to choke out the words.
Patrick clicked his tongue. “I can’t say anything about her personal life, Tanner. I’ve been sworn to confidentiality just the same as I haven’t told them anything about you.”
While Tanner wanted to yell, rant, and demand answers, he also understood Patrick’s position. It was an attorney’s job to keep secrets for those who paid him… Tanner just wished Patrick didn’t take his career quite so seriously.
The journey to their southern Georgia town took a week and Tanner was eager to stop in town, get a bath, a shave and a clean change of clothes before he went out to the plantation to face whatever awaited him there.
The stares began immediately as he walked down the streets. Then came the whispers. Some people crossed the road while other tipped their hats at him. Tanner felt like some gallery piece on display for the masses.
He hated it.
Yes, he had killed his brother. He had shot the man in the back in order to save the woman he loved from any more torment at the man’s hands. Why was that the business of anyone in this town? Why did they act as if their stares and their whispers were justified and proper?
Tanner paid for a bath, a haircut, and a shave with money he’d earned while in prison. He bought some new clothes and it felt good to finally be clean after so many dirty years in that prison.
Tanner stood in the sunlight outside the livery. He was putting off stepping inside and renting the horse that would take him to the plantation. He was terrified of what he’d find. Could his heart take it if he saw her in the arms of another man?
The answer was yes.
While it would kill a part of him, Tanner knew that if he saw that she was happy with that man, if her green eyes sparkled with life and a smile lit her face, then he could accept whatever life she now had. Tanner would let her keep the plantation and he would find a new life somewhere else, probably very, very far away.
His mind made up and his heart determined. Tanner headed into the livery to see about getting that horse.
***
Tanner rode through those gates and took in the sight of home. He’d spent the last quarter hour riding through fields of cotton, wheat, corn and barely. He could smell the orchards and orange groves and the flowers that were still blooming all over the property.
His stomach was tied and twisted in knots as he rode closer and closer. There were less workers here just as Patrick had said there were. There was only a staff of ten that stayed permanently and seasonal workers were hired on during planting and harvest seasons. Tanner was pleased to see that the servants quarters had been kept up and appeared pleasantly livable. The burnt barn had been rebuilt and no evidence of that terrible night seemed to remain…
Tanner dismounted his horse and looked at those porch steps. He felt eyes on him as the workers realized who he was. They whispered but stayed away and Tanner wondered why they didn’t greet him.
His gaze went back to those steps… Back to that slab of stone his brother had been standing upon when Tanner had sent a bullet into his back and killed him.
Flashbacks of that night flashed through his mind. He was no longer in the present. Instead, he was lost in the past, lost in the blood, the pain, the rage, and the desperation.
“Who are you?”
A tiny voice broke through Tanner’s memories and his eyes flew open to find a little boy standing in the exact place that Trevor had been standing when Tanner’s bullet had slammed into him. The boy had his head cocked to the side as he studied him with curiosity.
The boy appeared to be around four or five years in age and he was oddly familiar in appearance… he looked a lot like Tanner had looked like as a child in his features, though he had darker hair, hair that was the same shade that Trevor’s had been. Freckles dotted the suntanned skin of his cheeks and nose--and his eyes, his eyes were green and bright and all Temperance.
The truth settled on Tanner’s shoulders like a ton of bricks and the truth of what Temperance had been going through, the realization of what had really caused her to distance herself from him, slammed into his gut. This boy was his nephew, Tanner had killed his father, and Temperance was being forced to raise a child who had been born from rape…
Tanner shoved his hand through his dark blond hair and shook his head. “God have mercy…”
Chapter Thirty-One
“I said, who are you?” the boy repeated with exasperation.
Tanner opened his mouth to reply, but stopped when he heard footsteps coming toward the door. “Jackson, what are you doing out…” Temperance’s voice faded and Tanner looked up to take in the sight of her.
Beautiful.
A moment of peace settled over his soul.
Her red hair was filled with golden highlights and pulled halfway back so it still fell across her shoulders. Her face was fuller, her entire body had filled out into the soft curves that Tanner had always loved the most on a woman. She no longer appeared half starved or scared of her shadow. There were no bruises marring her pale, freckled skin. The years had been good to her physically. And for a split seconds her eyes green eyes sparkled, until she realized who she was looking at.
Tanner saw the light in them go out instantly and his heart broke at the sight.
“Hi, Temperance…” he greeted awkwardly.
“Tanner…” she whispered.
Tanner became alarmed when he saw all the signs of an attack of anxiety coming on. Her breathing became erratic, her hand covered her heart, she stumbled back several steps, and couldn’t seem to speak. He saw her eyes going blank, it was something he recognized as he’d seen her have a few times.
Tanner quickly dashed forward, forgetting all about the boy. “Temp, sweetheart, calm down. Focus on me and breathe…” he whispered gently as he took her hands in his.
Temperance’s eyes met his and he could see the fear, confusion, and pain all swirling together and so intense that he felt it himself. She stiffened at his touch instead of relaxing the way she once had.
“Please…” she whispered in a trembling voice, “Please don’t touch me.”
Tanner instantly released his hold on her and Temperance turned on her heel and fled with tears running down her cheeks.
Tanner’s hands fell down to his sides and he stared after her long after she was gone. He then remembered the boy, Jackson, and he turned to look down at the child awkwardly. “Uh… Your mom will be okay. She’s just surprised to see me.”
“I know. She cries sometimes and doesn’t like it when people touch her. ‘Cept me! I can get cuddles whenever I want,�
� Jackson walked over to the mare Tanner had ridden in on and reached up to pat the horse’s neck, “What’s your horse’s name?”
Tanner floundered for a moment. His mouth worked up and down as his mind tried desperately to wrap around everything. “I… uh… I don’t know. I borrowed her from the livery.”
“Oh. I have a pony. It’s white with black spots on it. Do you wanna see it? What’s your name?”
“Tanner.”
“Tanner, come see my pony!”
Jackson dashed away toward the barn and Tanner stared after him for several long moments. He felt torn between following the boy and giving Temperance space or chasing after Temperance and demanding to know why she had felt she couldn’t trust him with the truth…
Jackson won. The simple truth was Tanner simply didn’t have the heart to ask those kinds of questions just yet.
***
Temperance stared in the mirror and swiped desperately at the tears falling from her red, swollen eyes.
Tanner.
Tanner was back.
Why was he back?
Temperance had believed it would be another two decades before the man would be released from that prison and none of them had heard any different, though Temperance couldn’t say that any of them had tried to learn anything about his sentence.
Temperance was terrified.
Would he hate her? Surely, he would.
But then again she had seen the gentle concern in those blue gray eyes. She had heard the tenderness in his voice and when he had grabbed her hands… Temperance trembled. Since the day Yancy had taken her away from home, only one man’s touch had done something other than terrify her--it seemed Tanner’s touch had not changed.
Temperance had spent the last five years in a haze. The only time she felt any form of happiness was when she was with her son, her Jackson. The boy looked so much like herself and Tanner that Temperance had taken to pretending Tanner was truly the boy’s father. He was smart, energetic, inquisitive, and full of life, he had been all that kept Temperance going.
Against Her Will Page 14