Demetri bowed and left, but not before shooting Kale a look seething with contempt. Some things never changed.
“If you had shown some simple courtesy, we would have had your room ready for you.”
“Well, I didn’t want to waste any time when I heard of your failing health.”
“No, wouldn’t want to miss the big event, would you? I’ve already eaten. I’ll see you tomorrow.” Robert puffed his cigar and lifted a book that lay abandoned on his lap.
After a hurried dinner, Kale followed Jason up to his room. It looked exactly as it had the last time they’d visited. They both divested themselves of their clothing and collapsed into bed.
“How is it we were basically sitting all day, yet I’m exhausted?” Jason rolled over and flung his arm across Kale’s chest.
“I’m tired after just watching you and your father. I imagine it was emotionally draining.”
“I suppose. I don’t understand why he can’t find it in himself to be agreeable. Did he really think I would concede? He’s never managed to understand that I’ll choose you over him every time.”
“You know it’s not about me. Not personally.”
“And that’s supposed to make it better?”
“To him, I’m a slave. Nothing more. You can’t judge your father by your own standards. It’s not fair. I was just a slave to you for far longer than I’ve been just a slave to him.” A twinge of hurt flashed in Jason’s eyes. “I don’t mind, Jason. It’s the simple truth of the matter. You’ve nothing to be sorry for. You treated me like what I was. You need to stop expecting more from your father.”
“I suppose I can try. It’s just that whenever I see him, I remember the terror he caused you last time.”
“That was as much my fault as it was his.”
“You’re too forgiving and much too understanding of men who mistreat you.”
“There’s no point in tossing blame on a dying man. It won’t change anything. You have little enough time left as it is.”
“I know. I’ll try. That’s all I can promise. I’ll try for you.”
“Thank you. I don’t want you living with regret. It’s a weight no one should have to bear.”
Jason propped his chin on the hand that rested on Kale’s chest and stared straight at him. “How are you feeling about tomorrow?”
Kale shifted his weight. “Nervous. I haven’t been back there since I was fourteen.”
“How long of a drive is it?”
“I’d guess about three hours.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to go?”
Kale’s feelings changed from minute to minute. The desire for Jason’s company, his support, wrestled with something deeper that insisted this was something he needed to do on his own. “I’m sure, though you’re sweet to offer. I’ll be fine. You need to spend time with your father.”
Jason’s eyes were wary. If he looked hard enough, he would find the doubt he sought. Kale rolled him over and kissed him. Distraction turned to passion, and Kale shifted his pelvis against Jason’s. Lust chased the wariness from Jason’s eyes. It was a quick, rough fuck, and for a few glorious minutes, the tension fled from Kale’s body. As soon as he rolled off Jason and pulled his lover toward him, it crept back into first his thoughts and then his muscles.
“If you change your mind, just let me know.” A yawn swallowed the last words.
Kale kissed Jason’s mop of brown hair. “I will. I’m planning on leaving early. Do you want me to wake you before I go?”
“’Course.” Jason snuggled closer.
Satisfaction poured through Kale. The man in his arms needed him, and Kale had reached the point where he could admit that he filled Jason’s need. If only he could fill his family’s.
Chapter Nine
Jason gazed out the bay windows to the softly rolling hills. The clock in the corner stood eerily silent. Dust coated every surface of the small corner room at the back of the house. The pink cushion he sat on in the window seat had delicate tassels hanging off every corner. It was a room suspended in time. When he closed his eyes, Jason swore the smell of Lena’s sweet lilac perfume drifted by, as if carried on a draft. It was the smell of a hundred hugs, the scent of countless smiles. In the suffocating silence, he imagined her light laughter banishing the heavy air. Remnants of his mother.
After she had died trying to bring a baby into the world, Jason’s father had forbidden him to enter this room. The few portraits of her that hung in the house were removed. She was never to be spoken of. When the fights with his father had grown particularly painful, or when the loneliness threatened to swallow him whole, he had retreated here in the ultimate act of defiance his eight-year-old mind could conceive. It was the only place in the house where he felt comforted, embraced by the only person who had ever loved him. This corner of the house had always been her domain, where she came to sew or read when she’d wanted solitude.
Thick trees clustered in the distance around the watering hole. In the quiet of the room, Jason could just hear the bass notes of the cattle, though he couldn’t see any. Everything in his field of vision would be his soon, and he didn’t want any of it. All he wanted was the little sewing room in the corner with the bay windows.
A tear fell on his hand, and Jason looked down at the spot, mystified that he hadn’t even known he was crying. The evidence of his emotional crack widened the rupture, and his face crumpled at the sting behind his eyes and nose. Tears poured with a force that shook his chest. Placing his feet on the window seat, he wrapped his arms around his knees and sobbed. His heart longed for the warmth of his mother, but he couldn’t have her. With a stab of shame, he admitted that he could barely even remember what she looked like. What kind of son forgot his own mother?
Kale. He needed Kale. Except he had left early in the morning. True to his word, he’d woken Jason. Once more, Jason had asked if Kale wanted him to go with him. Kale had answered with a resolute no and a gentle kiss. Kale had always been the strong one. Here Jason was falling apart without him, while Kale went off to find the mother and brother he hadn’t seen in well over a decade.
A restless mind hounded Jason as soon as Kale left. After breakfast, he had searched for peace in this little room. There wasn’t much else to do, and this house hadn’t been his home in years. It hadn’t really felt like home since his mother had died. All his happy childhood memories centered around her. Even his father had seemed different while she lived.
Jason cried until his eyes burned dry and the pressure in his head threatened to burst. It seemed strange that one house could feel both familiar and foreign to him at the same time. The place reminded him of everything he hated in life: ignorance, his father, and Kale’s oppression. Kale was the only person who could have convinced him to return. Jason wasn’t interested in what would happen to the ranch. It could burn for all he cared.
Unfurling himself from the window seat, he wiped his eyes and sat at his mother’s writing desk. As a child, he had been too shy to poke through her things, still in awe of the woman whom he held in the same esteem as the saints. Pulling on the ornate brass handle, he had to jiggle the first drawer to open it. Inside were some old letters from his aunt and grandparents. All dead now. He had only seen Aunt Estelle once when his mother took him to Perdana the year before she died. Actually, he supposed Estelle must have been at his mother’s funeral. The whole day was a blur in his mind, one he was content to have remain locked away in his memory. Estelle and his grandmother had both died a few years after his mother, Estelle from a fever and Grandmother from natural causes, though Jason suspected it was from a broken heart. His grandfather had died when Jason was a toddler, and after Estelle was gone, his dear grandmother had no one left. She and his father had never gotten along.
The drawer slid closed more easily than it had opened, and Jason moved to the other side of the desk. An identical drawer opened to reveal two leather-bound books. Jason opened the first, a date and address book. There, in his
mother’s fluid, loopy penmanship were notes about the local quilting group’s charity sale, the summer bazaar, a friend’s birthday. Jason pushed the book aside. If that was her datebook, then he had an idea what the next book was. He saw the word “Journal” embossed on the cover.
A light knocking on the door startled Jason, and he shoved both books back in the drawer.
“Sir?” Demetri’s decorous voice penetrated the wood.
“Yes?” Jason hoped his face wasn’t red and splotchy.
The door opened, and Demetri stood primly in the entryway. “I was wondering if you’d like me to serve your lunch in here or if you’d prefer to take it in the dining room, sir.”
“How did you know I was here?”
“I used to see you sneak in here as a child. When you weren’t in your room, I figured this was where you’d be, sir.” It was easy to forget how long Demetri had been a part of his life. For the longest time, Jason had admired his father’s slave. Demetri had always talked to Jason as if he were a grown-up, which, to a child, was the utmost compliment. Jason shook his head when he thought how different his life would have been if his father had given him Demetri as Jason had asked. Denying him was the nicest thing his father had ever done for him. Not only would Jason not have Kale in his life, but he would have been fundamentally different. Kale was more than a companion and lover; he had touched Jason’s soul and irrevocably altered it.
“Sir?”
Jason wanted to know where his father was having lunch, but it didn’t seem appropriate to ask. He hadn’t even realized he was hungry and could have spent the rest of the day wrapped in the memory of his mother. However, it probably wasn’t healthy. He didn’t want Kale coming back to find him in a state that would prompt concern. “I’ll eat in the dining room. I’ll be along in a moment. Thank you.”
Demetri nodded and left, closing the door behind him. Jason reached for the drawer and stopped himself, curling his hand into a fist. Better to wait for when he had the time to read his mother’s words. A wave of dizziness overcame him as he stood. The crying and lack of food left him lightheaded. With any luck, Kale would return soon, and Jason could avoid toppling into another emotional abyss.
Chapter Ten
If Jason were with him, he would be holding Kale’s hand. Jason wouldn’t let him stew or doubt or be haunted by thoughts of every possible scenario. But Jason wasn’t with Kale, and it had been Kale’s choice, so he needed to live with it. The least he could do was try to rein in his thoughts the way Jason would want him to. There was no point wondering what was going to happen when a little patience would answer the question for him.
Once he got to the other side of the county, it had been more difficult to find Monroe’s farm than Kale had anticipated. Why he’d thought he’d be able to find it was a mystery. He’d been born on the farm and had only left a handful of times. When he’d left for the final time, it had been too traumatic for him to remember anything other than the feeling that his chest had been hollowed out with a wooden spoon. It had taken all of his energy not to lose his mind on the ride from Monroe’s. He certainly hadn’t been enjoying the scenery.
Peeking over the trees in the distance was some manmade object. It looked like rusty pipes jutting into the air. Kale squinted and leaned forward. As he crested a hill, he got a better view and whistled. That damn old water tower was still standing. He was about to enter Cedar City, the closest town to Monroe’s farm. When the town had erected the water tower, there had been a big to-do about it. To celebrate, someone had gotten it into his head to decorate it with a wrought iron statue of a cedar tree standing proudly on top of the tank. The result was a tangle of metal protruding into the air like an iron weed that could be seen for kilometers. All the slaves at Monroe’s had made fun of it. Kale wasn’t as lost as he’d thought.
Fifteen minutes later, he turned onto the road leading to Monroe’s house. Only a few more minutes. The car flew over a large rock, and Kale glanced at the speedometer. It was nearly topped out at seventy kilometers an hour. Jason would kill him if he got in an accident. With some effort, he lightened his foot on the gas pedal. The car slowed and then sped as he worked to keep his weight off the gas. It felt as if his foot was a stone his leg had to lift off the pedal. Kale’s fingers tapped the steering wheel, and he adjusted his weight, not able to settle in one spot.
On the left, a break in the trees revealed a driveway. Kale guessed it was the one. Nerves tightened in his stomach. The imminent reunion with his family was only part of the cause. Being in Arine was stressful in itself, and the sooner he got his family, the sooner he could leave. There was a nagging fear in his gut that he would be caught and dragged to the auction block in chains. It was completely absurd. But if something did happen, Jason wasn’t even there to help. Kale could disappear and Jason would never know. Kale took a deep breath, squashing his fear as his chest constricted, attempting to push it down far enough to not bother him.
The road bent to the left, and Kale’s heart dropped. Maybe he had gotten it wrong. The porch was covered in weeds and vines. The once white house was now a greenish, brownish, gray mess. One of the second story windows was broken. Kale parked the car and got out. The crunch of his shoes on gravel as he approached drew his attention to the abnormal silence. Farms bustled with noise in the daytime. A window on the side of the house revealed that there wasn’t much left inside: a few odd knickknacks, worn-down furniture, and spider webs. Buzzing drew his gaze upward to a hornet’s nest. Of all the scenarios he had played out in his mind, this hadn’t been one of them.
The house was surrounded by a barrier of trees, secluding it from the farm. Kale explored the rest of the property, looking for remnants of the childhood he had spent there. The fields were overgrown. Wheat, corn, peanuts, soybeans, had all been grown on this farm at one time or another. Now there was nothing but brush. It was hard to imagine this place had ever teemed with life. To his right were the rows of huts that had housed the slaves. It was easy to spot the one he had lived in. His mother had worked in the kitchens, so they’d had a hut on the end closest to the house.
Kale entered the building where he had been born, watching for rotted wood. The small, one-room structure was unremarkable. He didn’t know what he had expected. There was no sign that anyone had ever lived there. The rough brick of the fireplace didn’t feel familiar beneath his hand. Closing his eyes, he dredged up his memories of this room. The earliest were of his mama telling him and Thomas stories of the gods in front of the fire while his brother was still a toddler. When Thomas learned how to talk, he would ask “Ale” to tell the stories. Kale embellished the familiar tales with dramatic arm gestures and theatrical voices in an effort to win Thomas’s dimples and gurgling laugh. Their little family had been happy.
The hut had been too small for the eight people who lived there, so Kale had spent much of his time outside when he wasn’t working. The only time he had ever slept indoors was when it had been too cold. Behind the hut, he walked until he found the pond. It was small and infested with mosquitos, but it had been heaven to a young boy. It was here he had taught Thomas how to catch bullfrogs and fish.
Kale sat, not caring about the dirt on his trousers. There were more painful lessons he had passed on to his brother. This was where he had taught him that slaves were less than free, that slaves didn’t get to have fathers the way free boys did. His mama had taught him, and he had taught Thomas. It wasn’t something a person was born knowing. This was where he had learned the futility of hope.
Kale should have been put to work in the fields. He had the build for it, but his mama was adamant that he wouldn’t become a field slave. The only time he had ever spent in the fields was dragging the water bucket around. It was his mother’s doing. Andrew, the master’s valet, had taken a liking to her. Kale hadn’t understood it as a young boy, but as he got older, it wasn’t hard to figure out why he and his brother were always sent away when Andrew came by.
Anger seethed in h
is chest. He hated his mother for it. Not for the act, but for grooming him from birth to be sold, to be ripped away from her and everything he knew. She’d always told him to pay attention to the house slaves. He wasn’t even allowed to play with the field hands. Never mimic a free a person, she had said. That led to trouble. But she had insisted that he behave like Andrew and Garrison, the butler. Any time he slipped into lazy speech, or did something that would have gotten him in trouble with a free person, she had cuffed him upside the head. Kale chuckled. His mother had hit him more frequently than any master had. He sobered. It was precisely because she’d cuffed him that he hadn’t felt the whip more than he had.
His dear, sweet mother wanted the best for him. She had to have known that there was no way their master would keep him. He had no need for another valet. Andrew had whispered in the master’s ear about the young slave boy who was worth more than the mending and washing Kale did. It made more financial sense for his master to sell him as a valet and buy two sorely needed labor slaves to help on such a large farm.
Kale dug his fingers into the ground, digging in the dirt to relieve his frustrations. He hated the master, Andrew, his mama, even Thomas. He hated them all. He should have stayed. He should have been allowed to see Thomas grow up, to take care of his mother as she aged. All choice had been stripped from him. It wasn’t really his mother and Thomas he hated—it was himself for leaving.
A hard surface blocked the path of his finger in the ground. Kale uncovered the flat stone and threw it across the pond out of habit, watching it skip on the water. The master’s groom—Kale couldn’t remember his name—had taught him how to skip stones. Kale had loved showing Thomas the trick. There had been pride in being able to do something his brother couldn’t and then teach it to him. Thomas hadn’t been as quick to learn and had begged Kale to teach him every night, even when Kale was bone tired from working. Wide green eyes had stared up at him over a freckled nose and a bottom lip that jutted out. No matter how tired Kale was, he always mustered the energy to give Thomas whatever he wanted. He would have done anything for that kid. He still would.
[Measure of Devotion 01.0 - 03.0] Box Set Page 56