by Merry Farmer
He leaned closer to her.
A door opened and shut a short distance away. The clap brought Thomas back to his senses. He straightened. Rebecca gasped and stepped back. She had leaned closer to him as well.
“Which house belongs to the Fryes?” he asked. His voice came out deeper than he expected.
Rebecca blinked rapidly and looked around and down the street. “It’s that one.” She cleared her throat and touched her burning cheek. “But, oh dear!”
Thomas turned to see what had changed her reverie to anxiety. Dr. Greene marched toward them from a house a few doors down. The man with the moustache was no longer with him. When he let himself out through the garden gate and glanced up to see Thomas and Rebecca, he scowled.
Thomas drew in a breath, stood straighter, and strode to meet Dr. Greene.
“If you’ve come to visit the little Frye girl, you can save yourself the trouble,” Dr. Greene said with a dismissive sneer.
“I have come to see her.” Thomas nodded. “I take it you have already examined her.”
“Yes, I have.”
“And what is your diagnosis?”
Dr. Greene huffed. “I’m not about to share private medical information with a savage like you.”
The insult was so common it rolled off Thomas’s back. “Two of Mrs. Turner’s daughters are sick as well, as is her father,” he went on as though part of a hospital consultation. “I have prescribed rest and plenty of fresh water. I don’t believe they are in any danger of—”
“I’ll get over there right away and take a look at them,” Dr. Greene spoke to Rebecca.
“I—” Rebecca was taken by surprise. She looked from one man to the other, eyes wide. “Dr. Smith has already examined them, but thank you,” she finally said to Dr. Greene in a voice so small it broke Thomas’s heart. She couldn’t meet Dr. Greene’s eyes either.
“Well, I’ll just check in on Angus to make sure everything is really as it seems to be,” Dr. Greene said. “And then I’ll have a word with Nathan Sobel about his pond.” He walked past both of them without another word.
“There’s no need,” Rebecca said as he passed.
Whether Dr. Greene heard her or not, he marched by without acknowledging her. Thomas’s blood boiled. A slight to him he could handle, but a slight to Rebecca was a call to war.
“I’ll stop him,” he said, starting after the man.
“No.” Rebecca held him back. “There’s really no need.”
He paused, the interruption of his forward momentum making him restless. “Are you sure? He will cause trouble.”
“Not with Papa,” she said. Through her tension, she managed to give him a weak smile. “Papa has a mind of his own.”
He relaxed by a fraction. “I suspect you have a mind of your own, too.”
She laughed. It was small and short, but it filled him with energy.
“If Bo had heard you say that, he would have knocked me down hard to keep it from coming true.”
Thomas’s heart froze. His throat closed up and the urge to kill the man swallowed him. He had heard the rumors, but hearing the truth from Rebecca’s own lips was like an axe in the back.
She instantly lost her smile. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.” She lowered her head as though expecting some sort of reprisal from him, digging the axe deeper.
“Rebecca, you can say whatever you’d like or do whatever you want with me,” he assured her in a raw voice. “I will cherish every word.” He cleared his throat, not trusting himself to say more.
She peeked up at him through her lashes. “I’m not used to that. Thank you.”
They stood in awkward silence for a few more minutes. If he didn’t do something soon to bring this woman into his arms and show her what a real man was, he would have to question whether he was a man at all.
“We can go on and see Millie Frye and Claire now, if you want,” she said at length, her voice a little stronger.
He took in a breath and turned to examine the house Dr. Greene had come from. “Are you sure she would welcome me now?”
Rebecca shrugged, shaking off the awkward moment inch by inch. “There’s only one way to find out.” She offered him a shy grin and started past him for the Frye’s house.
Chapter Three
Rebecca’s heart beat a mile a minute and her skin tingled with excitement and uncertainty. No man had ever told her she could say or do what she wanted around him. The freedom of that statement—coming from Thomas, of all men—was frightening. Joy bubbled through her heart and her core, but she couldn’t trust it. She couldn’t trust him. Not yet.
“I’m fairly sure Millie will talk to me, as a friend if nothing else,” she said in a rush as they reached the Frye’s front gate. Thomas held the gate open for her. The gesture was so kind that her fingers went numb. “Millie and I were in school together when Cold Springs was so small all of the kids were in one room,” she finished, forcing herself not to look at him. He was too much of a temptation. If she wasn’t careful around him, she’d give in to that temptation. The last time she’d done that, Bo happened.
Thomas nodded but didn’t say anything. He followed her up the path to the front door. Rebecca knocked. She twisted to check on him over her shoulder as they waited. Something deep and vibrant lit his eyes as he watched her. The square lines of his face were tense, but it was a far different tension than the kind Bo had displayed before flying into a rage. Thomas’s expression threatened to draw her in, make her give herself to him forever. That was the last thing she wanted, or so she told herself. Could she be wrong? Thomas wasn’t Bo. Maybe he—
The Frye’s door opened. Rebecca snapped straight.
“Oh!” Millie Frye blinked and raised a hand to her chest. “Rebecca. And…and Dr. Smith? This is a surprise.”
“Hello, Millie,” Rebecca greeted her. “How is Claire this evening?”
“She’s sick,” Millie told her, worry breaking through her surprise. “How is your Lorraine?”
Millie’s worry seemed to spread out and take hold of Rebecca. “Not much better, I’m afraid. Rachel is down with whatever this is now, too.”
“I’m sorry to hear it,” Millie said.
“I think I’ve been able to rule out a germ as the cause,” Thomas joined the conversation. “I can’t be sure what else it could be until I examine some of the other sick children and compare their symptoms.”
Millie turned an anxious eye up to Thomas. “Dr. Greene has already been to see Claire,” she began with caution. “He says Sobel’s Pond is making the children sick and should be shut down.”
“That’s what I understand.” Thomas nodded patiently. “I disagree, however. I think there is another cause, and until we discover what it is, more children could fall ill. May I come in and see Claire?”
He leaned toward the door as though he would step into the house. Millie held her ground. She wrung her hands in front of her, glancing from Thomas to Rebecca. A flush that had nothing to do with the summer heat worked its way up her neck.
“Oh dear. Jasper?” Millie turned and called deeper into the house. She gave Thomas a sideways look, holding fast to her spot.
Rebecca wasn’t sure if the prickles breaking out on her skin were embarrassment or exasperation.
“Dr. Smith is a trained physician,” she explained. “He checked both of my girls and my father. If he says it’s not Sobel’s Pond, I believe him.”
For just a moment, Rebecca thought she saw Thomas’s lips twitch into a smile. A heartbeat later he was serious.
“I went swimming myself this morning,” he explained. “The water is fine, but something else is not. Has Claire eaten anything unusual lately? Has she complained of stomach pains before?”
“I…I don’t…. Jasper!” Millie called again.
Rebecca shifted from one foot to the other, clenching her fists in her skirts. “There can’t be much harm in letting us in to at least talk about it,” she said.
Millie was
saved the trouble of answering as her husband, Jasper, appeared in the hall behind her. She ducked to the side to make way for him.
Jasper took one look at both Rebecca and Thomas and crossed his arms.
“What do you want?” he asked.
“Good evening, Mr. Frye.” Thomas held out a hand.
Jasper stared at it, unmoving.
Thomas cleared his throat and stood straighter. “I was hoping I might be allowed in to examine Claire in an attempt to get to the bottom of whatever is making so many children sick.”
“I don’t want no red Indian touching my little girl,” Jasper answered almost before Thomas was done. He moved to slam the door.
“Wait!” Rebecca held up her hands to push back on the door if she had to. Jasper stared at her as though she was some kind of poisonous insect. “Aren’t you at all concerned about finding the cause of Claire’s illness?”
“Folks are saying it’s the pond. It’s polluted somehow,” Jasper said. “Dr. Greene said he’s calling a town council meeting and they’re going to vote to have Nathan Sobel shut it down.”
“But what if the pond isn’t the problem?” Rebecca insisted. “You could be delaying Claire’s treatment. You could be making it worse.”
Jasper scowled. “You’ve gotten a damn-sight uppity since divorcing Bo, haven’t you?”
Rebecca gasped and shrank back. Shame sent ice through her blood. “I—”
“A woman divorcing her own husband,” Jasper sniffed. “It goes against nature. You and your damn lawyers, overturning God’s laws. No wonder you’ve taken up with him.”
He gestured to Thomas, then without further comment slammed the door. In a muffled voice from the other side, she heard him say “I told you not to speak to her anymore. It’s probably her filthy kids that are spreading disease all over town.”
Rebecca snapped her mouth shut and took a step back. Her heart flopped to her feet.
“Come away,” Thomas said. His voice was as cold and hard as a stone.
He slipped his hand around her elbow and nudged her back from the door. Still reeling, she followed him. Her mind fumbled to make sense of what had just happened. Her heart ached.
“I thought we were friends,” she whispered as Thomas walked her to the street. “Good friends. We used to have them out to the farm for supper all the time and vice versa.”
The sting of being dismissed so thoroughly and so unjustifiably radiated painfully through her. She hadn’t thought she’d minded the sideways looks and whispers of neighbors. It had been a small price to pay to get away from the worst decision of her life. She was her own woman now, she just hadn’t thought that would mean she would be alone. The ache of her disappointment turned bitter.
“Never mind their rudeness,” Thomas said as they walked on. He spoke with a quiet confidence that almost warmed the chill around her heart. He touched the small of her back, but even that gesture barely penetrated the fog of betrayal she walked through. Today he was kind, but Millie had been kind once, too.
“I never thought—”
“There are other children who are sick now as well,” he spoke over her. “Tomorrow we will seek them out and question them.”
She nodded, dreading the inevitability that those children’s parents would refuse to speak to her too.
She forced herself to take a breath. What she needed was a few calm moments in a safe spot to return to reason. She needed to walk over to Sobel’s Pond and sit in the shade to think. There was more use to the place than swimming and playing.
“They’re closing Sobel’s Pond,” she gasped as it struck her. Her chest squeezed tight as if another loved one were gravely ill and she glanced up to Thomas. “What will all the children do? This summer has been so hot and the pond has been their one comfort.” It had been her one comfort in the worst of times.
Thomas must have seen the panic painted on her face. He touched her back again as they walked. “My brother-in-law, Christian Avery, and his friend, Mr. West, are on the town council. I can speak to them and explain why closing the pond would be too hasty. They are smart men who will listen to reason.”
“I hope so.”
They walked on to the corner of Main Street in silence. Her soul was agitated as her mind replayed everything that had just happened, trying to make sense of it. It seemed more like an episode from a dream…a nightmare than a reality. Thomas’s kindness was beautiful, but Bo’s first kindness had been, too. Millie’s betrayal was harder to swallow. She’d never known her friend to be so hard-hearted. The same woman had taken her in and put balm on the cuts that Bo had given her in his darkest moods.
“She should know better,” Rebecca mumbled aloud as she and Thomas turned into the lane between the houses on Main Street and Second Street.
“She should?” Thomas prompted.
Rebecca stopped and faced him. Her turmoil solidified into frustration. His promise that she could say anything she wanted to him was the only light she could see at the moment.
“Even Jasper should know better,” she dared to speak her mind, dared to confide in him. “Why, half this town knows how Bo used to treat me. They saw the bruises themselves.”
Dark fury filled Thomas’s eyes, but for a change she wasn’t afraid it would be directed at her. It was encouraging.
“Is it so wrong for me to have broken the bonds of a marriage that kept me a prisoner in my own home, living in fear?” she asked in a whisper what she wanted to shout from the rooftops.
“No.” He reached out and touched her arm.
“God didn’t create that marriage, pure foolishness did,” she went on, more than a decade’s worth of frustration bubbling to the surface all at once. “I was sixteen when Bo Turner caught my eye and turned my head. I was too young to know what I was doing. I was pregnant before I really knew who he was, and by that time it was too late.” She shook her head, rubbing her forehead. “I married Bo when I was seventeen, and six months later I had Grover. Millie knows that. She knows how miserable I was for all those years, and now she grudges me my freedom?”
“People do not like it when we take our lives in our own hands,” he said. He took her hand as she lowered it from her forehead and held it tight. “They want us to stay in our place, to stay in the place they give us, even if that is not the place we were born to have.”
“They do.” Rebecca breathed out what felt strangely like relief. Thomas knew, on some level, how she felt. Of course, he did.
“It is because they are afraid of their own lives,” he said. “They are afraid of their own misery because unlike us, they do not have the strength to fight for themselves.”
“No, I suppose they don’t.”
She blinked as she looked at him, as if seeing a new man in front of her. His handsome face was familiar, but it was the courage behind the square line of his jaw and the determination in his eyes that sent tremors of longing through her. She could see the proud warrior underneath the fine clothes. Thomas was a man who had defied convention to be who he was, but now she saw that it wasn’t easy for him. She saw that she wasn’t alone.
The urge to be closer to him that came with her realization was too much to ignore. Against all reason and in spite of the voice of warning screaming in her head, she squeezed his hand and leaned toward him. Lifting to her toes, she sucked in a gasp before closing her lips over his. He was warm, his lips soft in surprise. His skin smelled of salt and sunshine.
It was only supposed to be a quick kiss, a reckless nothing, but once her lips met his, she couldn’t step back. For one anxious moment, nothing else happened. Then he slid his arm around her back and pulled her firmly against him. His lips parted and he returned her kiss with energy that had her heart beating double time with desire and fear. He rested his other hand against her cheek as he explored her mouth with steady passion. She embraced him, arms finding their home around the tight muscles of his back and shoulder. It was the most glorious feeling she had ever experienced. And the most te
rrifying.
It was over far too soon.
“Oh!” She breathed quickly as they let each other go. She couldn’t think of a single other thing to say. Her lips tingled, the taste of him lingering. She couldn’t do this to herself, not again, but, oh, how she wanted to!
He watched her in silence. Everything he felt was vibrant in his face, in the lines of his body that continued to lean toward her. His gaze was locked on her lips, but gradually lifted to meet her eyes. She knew enough about men to know that he wanted more. Much more.
“I don’t want you to do anything you will regret,” he said at last.
Rebecca’s heart skipped a beat. She wasn’t sure she’d heard him right. Experience told her he should be making salacious demands, not stepping back. She opened her mouth, but nothing came out.
He cleared his throat and said in a smoother voice, “Would you like to walk out with me sometime?”
A bubble of joy rose up from her chest to her throat, bursting into a smile before she could stop it.
“I…I would.” She blinked in shock. That wasn’t what she should be saying at all.
As soon as Thomas smiled, her illusion crumbled.
“I can’t.” That was more like it. Reality and responsibility piled back over her. “I can’t consider anything like that until the girls are better.” She took another breath. “I am flattered by your invitation, Thomas, but I have responsibilities toward my children.”
Thomas cleared his throat again. “Yes, of course.”
He frowned and rolled his shoulders, continuing to walk down the lane toward her parents’ house. Her heart sank. She’d embarrassed him.
“If you could keep an eye on Rachel and Lorraine, let me know if their symptoms change at all or get worse,” he said as if nothing was awkward between them. “You know I’m living in the apartment above the West’s store, right across the lane from you if you need me.”
“I know,” Rebecca said. Her body answered that it needed him in ways that had nothing to do with her children. She swallowed the sensation and forced her thoughts to her little ones. It wasn’t hard.