Cora's Heart: A Cypress Hollow Yarn

by Rachael Herron

  Through the open door at the top of the stairs, she could see just one star between the branches of the eucalyptus. It winked at her as the tree swayed in the wind.

  She pressed the shape of a kiss to his temple. “I do.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  The right combination of needles and wool is like a good marriage – comfortable, familiar, and surprisingly exciting. – E.C.

  After lying in the bomb shelter until they were cold, they’d run naked into the house, tumbling up the stairs to the bedroom where they’d found each other all over again. Cora knew there was so much to say, so much to talk about.

  But talking would probably ruin everything, and she just wanted one night. One full night with him. It was selfish. Weak. And it was what she wanted. They slept entwined, face to face, and instead of feeling as if she couldn’t breathe, she felt perfectly fitted to his body. His knee between hers, his arm slung over her, her hand on his waist. She fell into a sleep as deep as she’d ever known, and woke hours after daybreak.

  Mac was already awake, propped up, watching her with sleepy eyes. “Good morning.”

  “Chores,” she mumbled. “Late.”

  “They can wait a few more minutes.” He kissed her sweet and lazily.

  “Mmm. Good morning,” Cora said. And it was.

  “I told them I wouldn’t sell either.”

  The sated, pliant feeling left her body. She felt as if he’d suddenly slipped an ice cube behind her shoulder blades. She sat up, bringing the top of the sheet with her. Sure, he’d just seen everything she had to offer last night in the bomb shelter and afterward, but a conversation about the land, about her home, required some kind of clothing. The sheet would have to do. “What?”

  “They can do their own thing. Maybe Royal can make it work.”

  “But Louisa’s and Val’s properties are separated by ours in the middle. He won’t want the outside bits. That doesn’t make a lick of sense, and you know it.”

  Mac shrugged, his shoulder lifting and falling. “Then Royal’s fucked.”

  Cora tore her eyes away from the ropy muscle delineation. “He’s your boss.”

  Inclining his head, Mac said, “And my friend. But he’ll get over it. Money is money, and he can find more land. If Mom needs the cash that damn bad, maybe she can sell to someone else, someone who wants a house on the coast. It’s more important to me that I’m close to you.”

  Big words. Cora felt them reverberate in her chest, thumping around, and then she felt the fear again. “So you’re what, staying?”

  “If you’ll have me.”

  Have him? She wanted nothing more.

  And it could never happen. Not with what was unspoken between them. “We still have to talk.” Famous last words. She wound the corner of the sheet around her fingers and pulled.

  “About Olivia,” he said, agreeing with her. He slid his leg further out under the sheet so that it pressed against hers. The weight and warmth of it felt like something she could rely on. Something real. Cora took a breath and tried to bring the oxygen through her blood, slowing it down.

  “Yeah.”

  “I didn’t know about her, Cora.” He was telling the truth. She could see it. He’d never been able to lie to her.

  Mac went on, “But I’m going to take care of her.”

  Shaking her head, she said, “Good. But before you start saying –”

  “It doesn’t excuse the fact that she didn’t have a father all these years. I know how you feel about that, that she was left behind with no one but her mother.”

  Yeah, that. That was it.

  “But Trixie isn’t as bad as you make her out to be, Cora. I promise you that.”

  There it was then. The start of what he and Trixie would have together. Sudden exhaustion hit, a rough crash-landing as the wind was knocked out of her. The happiness that had filled her moments ago left her body with a whoosh.

  “Fine, Mac. That’s fine. I’m glad you’ll be doing the right thing.” She swallowed, hard. “I just can’t believe I never saw it before. Never suspected. Now that I know, it’s so obvious.” Her voice broke, and she regretted what he must hear in her words. “What I can’t figure out is how you didn’t know. That you didn’t ever guess, or wonder.”

  He lifted his shoulders and didn’t meet her eyes. “Just an idiot.”

  “You couldn’t do simple math? When did you first hear Trixie’d had a baby?”

  “I didn’t know. Not for a long time, until years after the fact. And then, it just…”

  “It just what?”

  “It just didn’t cross my mind.”

  “But now that you know that you’re her…” She waited for him to fill in the blank. He could acknowledge it here, with her, at least. “Come on, Mac. Fill in the blank. I want to hear you say it. Now that you know you’re her…”

  “Stop it, Cora.”

  “Say it. You’re her…”

  “I’m her father.” Mac tilted his head and tugged his earlobe.

  Cora felt a chill run through her. No, this didn’t make sense.

  It was his tell. From their teenaged penny poker days.

  “I’m her father,” Mac said again, his eyes wide. He knew he’d done it. Mac was lying. What the hell was he lying about?

  Cora felt the rest of the world melt away. There was only the space between them. And then that, too, fell away from her, and there was nothing underneath. Nothing to support her. She couldn’t feel the bed, couldn’t sense the air in the room, couldn’t even see Mac’s face, even though he was right in front of her.

  “You’re not her father.”

  “Cora –” He reached for her, and she scrambled backward off the bed as if he were wielding a knife.

  “Then who is?” But she knew. The knowledge fell into place, dropped into the nothingness that surrounded her. It filled the space, and it was so much worse than anything else could have ever been.

  “No,” she breathed and shook her head. “It couldn’t be. Logan and she never – they weren’t… That’s insane.”

  “Damn it to fucking hell.” Mac spoke to himself, not to her. It was all the confirmation she needed.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Knit through everything. – E.C.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” Cora felt a laugh rise, completely and totally inappropriate. “Oh my God, Mac. Tell me I’m wrong.”

  Mac kept quiet, which, as it turned out, was even more painful than anything he could have said.

  No. It was not only crazy, it was impossible.

  Yanking her hand out of his, she stood, hating the fact that she was naked, that the sheet stayed underneath him. But she could move fast when she had to, which was now. With one hand, she wrangled her overalls up, and with the other she pulled her T-shirt over her head. The shirt tangled, turned the wrong way and she had to use her other hand to make sure she pushed her head through the neck hole and not the arm, as she’d been trying to, and the overalls, meanwhile, dropped back to the floor.

  “Shit. Goddamn it, Mac! Turn around!” It was a ridiculous request but she made it anyway, even though it was too late for modesty. Way too late.

  But he obliged, turning his gaze to the wall. “He never admitted knowing, not to Trixie, anyway. Not out loud.”

  “But she was with you.”

  “We never slept together.”

  Cora could only gasp as she jerked the strap and clicked the clasp over the metal button. “Do not lie to me, Mac Wildwood. If you have any respect for me at all, which I’m beginning to doubt, don’t lie.”

  “I’m not lying,” he said. “But I don’t expect you to believe it.”

  “You were dating Trixie. For months. You’re telling me you never slept together?”

  “She wanted to have sex. I didn’t. People just assumed.”

  “You’re telling me that an eighteen-year-old red-blooded American male wouldn’t jump Trixie’s bones when she threw herself at him? Why the hell would I believ
e that, Mac?” She pulled on her socks, and over them her blue cowboy boots. The more dressed she was, the stronger she’d feel.

  “I was only ever in love with one girl.” Mac’s voice was clear. Steady. He pushed himself backward in her bed until he was leaning against the headboard again. “It wasn’t Trixie. You know that, Cora. In your heart, you know it’s the truth.”

  The words, though. Cora had to hear the words out loud, to weigh how they fit into her bedroom. “You’re telling me that Logan had a baby with Trixie. And that baby is Olivia.”

  Softly, Mac said, “Yes.”

  “You were going to keep it from me? With her? So what, you were both in cahoots?”

  Mac shifted on the bed as if to go to her.

  “Don’t. Don’t touch me. Don’t move.” She sucked in another hot, sharp breath. “Please just give me a minute.”

  Olivia, Logan’s child. She pictured Olivia and Mac racing the horses on the beach. Yes, it was there. Olivia’s seat had been so natural. She’d held on to the horse with her legs like Logan always had, with full confidence she was going nowhere but the finish line. Mac had always been a strong rider, but he’d respected limits. Cora had seen in Olivia’s shining eyes that there were no limits. Just like Logan.

  Then the worst thought hit her, the thought she might not live through. Suddenly nauseated, her knees felt unsteady, as if they were made of unspun fiber instead of knitted bone, and she sank to sit on the cedar chest. She leaned forward, putting both hands to her waist, and breathed out heavily, sucking in her next breath as the new realization walloped her harder than anything else.

  She met Mac’s eyes, and saw in them that he’d been waiting for her to get to this place. Even though she held up her hand in warning, he was beside her, wrapping the blanket around her shoulders, moving her gently back to the bed, where he let her curl into the tiniest ball she could get her body into. He tucked the blanket over her, pulling it tight, even over her boots, and then he lay down beside her, also on his side, face to face, waiting.

  “We were pregnant at the same time.”

  Mac nodded and touched the side of her cheek. “You were, love.”

  Tears came then, and Cora let him hold her. It didn’t help – the strength of Mac’s arms, the length and warmth of his body, nothing could eliminate the sudden, bitter cold.

  That first winter after Logan died, the furnace had gone out. The life insurance hadn’t come through yet, and there wasn’t enough in the bank account to cover the repair. Then, on winter solstice, the longest night of the year, the chimney flue’s handle had broken off in her hand. There would be no fire that night. Cora had put on three sweaters and two hats; then she’d wrapped four hand-knit blankets around herself. She’d sat on the floor in the living room on the old Persian rug she and Logan had found at an estate sale, the rug she’d scrubbed with a stiff brush and baking soda. She waited for the cold to come. And it had, but it had come in a different way – instead of the kind that made a body shiver, she’d felt something sharper and icy sink into her bones. The grief that night had been more chilling than anything else she’d ever felt. Knowing the sun was so far away from the earth that she’d have to wait – maybe forever – for it to come out again, knowing she’d be alone tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that, and the all the tomorrows of the future. No one to share home with. No one to be home with. Logan, his cheeky smile, his warmth that she’d taken for granted, gone forever.

  And then selfishly, she’d cried herself to sleep, knowing it was selfish even at the time. She should have been crying because she hurt for Logan – that he’d never see the fruition of his dreams. But she’d cried for that so many times already. That longest winter night, she’d cried for herself. For the baby she’d lost, for the child she’d never hold. For her imminent and never-ending loneliness.

  She’d frozen over so hard that she hadn’t ever felt the frost of the room she’d been dreading so much.

  Now that same coldness was back.

  Olivia.

  Olivia would have been her step-daughter. Cora ignored the obvious fact that had she known the truth, she and Logan probably wouldn’t have made it as a couple. Oh, who was she kidding? They never would have made it. For her to have had to accept the child who lived, who wasn’t hers, but who was her husband’s – could she have been that advanced at that age? She’d been so young. They all had. And Logan would have handled it badly. That was a given. It was almost guaranteed they would have left each other, leaving nothing behind but bitter regret.

  Cora would have been alone then, too, and she wouldn’t have had this home. Her safety blanket, the one she’d knitted together herself.

  Plunging her fists forward, Cora twisted her fingers into the yarn of the afghan Mac had wrapped her in. The thick yarn, a tough Romney two-ply she’d spun two years before, didn’t give, and neither did Mac, whose arms tightened around her. He pressed a kiss to the side of her temple. She was reminded of the moment in her market stall, when Olivia had held the fiber in her hand, surprised by the warmth it generated. Cora could feel it now – her body heat trapped by the blanket, by Mac returning to her. She didn’t need it though. She craved the chill.

  Then Mac said, “I can’t swear what I’m guessing is right or wrong, but I think if Logan knew, he pushed it so far out of his mind that he didn’t actually know anything.”

  Cora nodded against his chest, feeling a button graze her eyebrow. “That sounds like him.” Logan could bet on a horse and watch it falter on the way out of the gate, watch it hit the dirt with a sickening crunch, and his fists would still be balled up in hope as he whispered. Get up, girl, get up. I know you can get up. Show ’em all, girl. Show ’em what you’re made of. He’d been an optimist to the point of idiocy.

  When Logan had gone down, he’d never believed it was for good, either.

  “I hate him so much,” she said. Her voice was muffled against the yarn, against Mac’s chest.

  “Only because you loved him so much.”

  It cut to the bone. “I did. You know I did. I loved him in my way. In our way. We made this life together. He let me take care of him. Logan needed me.”

  “And you were amazing for him.” The words cost him, Cora could feel it. He went on, “Who took care of you, though?”

  “I didn’t need that.”

  “You did, mí Corazón. You did.” Mac paused before continuing. “You made a home for him. Somewhere safe. He’d never have gambled that away.”

  “But he did, didn’t he?”

  “You can’t bet on the risk of cancer. No one can bet on that, sweetheart.”

  Cora pushed against him, gaining only inches. Mac was strong, his arms thick. But she was stronger. “He gambled our whole life away. What, he thought I’d never see it? He thought Trixie would never tell? Would never change her mind?”

  “He always liked the long shot.”

  Cora sat up, still resisting him. “He broke it all.”

  “No, he didn’t –”

  “Yes.” Cora cut Mac off. He knew a lot about his cousin, but not everything. And Mac didn’t know everything about her. He barely knew anything. He didn’t know what she was capable of. How strong she was. And when she made up her mind, how determined. “Logan’s ruined everything. Every bit of everything I’ve ever worked for, he’s ruined it now.”

  “Cora –“

  “I made a home for him.”

  “You made it for both of you. You needed it as much as he did.”

  “But it was for him, at first. It only became mine later. And now – oh, God. Do I have to give her the house?”

  “No –”

  She couldn’t let him speak, couldn’t let him finish whatever he thought he understood. “But… this would all… wouldn’t it belong to his daughter? After he died?”

  “Cora! It’s yours. You were Logan’s wife. There’s nothing wrong with keeping your house. I understand the impulse, but…” Mac looked stunned as he too pushed himself into a sitt
ing position.

  “Olivia never had a father, even though he was around for the first…” Cora paused and did the math. “The first ten years of her life. Do you have any idea how much a father can mean to a little girl?”

  Mac started, “But –”

  “And he never even gave her money? He gave her nothing.”

  “He gave her a bike once. That’s what Trixie said.”

  “Jesus Christ! Are you serious? He gave her a bicycle. That’s worse than nothing at all. So you’re saying he acknowledged her once, and that was it. God. So completely Logan.” Cora slid to the edge of the bed. “I need to find Royal.”

  Mac looked stricken. “You can’t just jump into a decision like this – oh Christ, I’m sorry. I’ve screwed this all up.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said, as she grabbed her wallet from her bureau and stuffed it into her back pocket. “Let the dog out,” she muttered. “Then chores. Then I’ll find him.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “One guess.” Cora said, her heart lower than the floorboards. Lower than the hole that still gaped under the kitchen table. “I have to figure out how to give Olivia and Trixie the money that Logan owes them.”

  “Give it a day or two, love. It’s a lot to take in.”

  Cora threw the word back in his face. “Love. So you were ready to lie to me for how long?”

  Mac scrubbed at his face, rubbing the sides of his cheeks. “That wasn’t how it was.”

  “And you would have built everything on that lie. Is that right? If we’d – I can’t even believe I’m saying this – if we’d ended up together, you would have kept that lie going? You and Trixie? For how long? Oh, God, would you have let Olivia believe it too? Would you have acted like her father?”

  Again, as before, silence was her answer.

  He could have fixed it, Cora realized. She loved him so much that if he’d told her she was wrong, if he’d been able to convince her that she was crazy, she would have forgiven him. But he couldn’t lie to her. For one long painful second, Cora regretted that. But then she did what she had to do.