Spirit of the Ruins

by Jenny Lykins

  “More!” Connor yelled, though his eyes followed the swirling world and he fell sideways every time he tried to sit up.

  “Sorry, buddy.” Ty rolled over and poked Connor on the arm when the sky stopped spinning and his stomach stopped rolling. “But if I try that last maneuver again without a dose of Dramamine...well, let’s just say it wouldn’t be a pretty sight.”

  Callen knelt beside them, tears still threatening in her eyes but a tiny smile on her face.

  “Thank you,” she said, her voice choked to a whisper, the tears all but spilling over her lashes.

  “I didn’t do anything.” Certainly nothing to warrant this profound gratitude and display of tears.

  “You’ve done more than you’ll ever know.” She kept her gaze skyward, blinking her eyes clear. “Come along, sweetheart,” she said to Connor, pulling him to his little malformed feet. “Tell...” She stopped, blinked again, stared at the ground for a moment. “Tell the nice man thank you.”

  Connor looked at Ty, all signs of shyness gone. “Thank you!” he piped, then his face turned quizzical. “Will you do it next time?”

  Before Ty could even begin to form an answer, Stephen called from the veranda for Callen to bring her son. Ty stood then, and had the pleasure of shooting the man a glare.

  “Come now,” she rasped, her voice full of tears that Ty assumed were over the confession she knew she owed him. Before they turned, however, Connor let go of his mother’s hand and clumsily launched himself at Ty, wrapping his arms around Ty’s legs in a little boy bear hug.

  Ty looked down at the small, dark head, emotionally distancing himself and his feelings. He’d already fallen in love with Callen. He couldn’t bear to walk away from two people he cared about. Too late, a little voice whispered. He scooped Connor up, tossed him, squealing, a few inches into the air before catching him and perching him on his arm.

  “Be good, big guy,” he said to that tiny, smiling face, then flipped him to the ground and held him until he found his balance.

  Callen took her son’s hand then and led him away. Connor turned and waved every few steps. His mother never once looked back.

  Ty stood and watched for a few moments, expecting them to disappear into the house. Instead, to his shock, they walked to the carriage. Callen knelt and held her son’s little body in a long, tearful embrace, and then Connor, crying and reaching for his mother, was lifted inside by the woman who’d brought him. The door closed behind her as the carriage rolled away.

  Ty watched, looking from the carriage to Callen and back again. She stood there until the carriage disappeared, her arms wrapped around herself. When she finally looked away, her gaze went directly to Ty, then she turned, lifted her skirts, and ran, sobbing, into the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ty sat at the table and stared for what seemed like hours at the blank piece of paper in front of him. He’d found an 1860s version of a pencil with Tylar’s art supplies, but now he didn’t know what to write.

  From the first moment he’d walked through that column, he’d been struck with one surprise after another, right down to watching Callen send her surprise son away within a matter of hours of his arrival.

  And not willingly.

  Where had they taken him? Did he need medical care for some other physical problem? Had they taken him to a hospital or home to receive that care?

  With her emotional disappearance into the house, he’d abandoned any ideas of demanding an explanation from her. He wouldn’t put her through that ordeal as well.

  But the experience, the scene, the whole day, just underlined how much damage he’d done by simply being there, and how the best thing for everyone would be for him to leave so they could get on with their lives, no matter how hard it would be for him to walk away.

  He stared at the paper a few more minutes, then started to write.

  Dear Callen,

  I’m sorry for all the pain my presence here has caused you. I don’t know why the hands of fate led me to this house and this time, but you must believe that I am not your husband. I can’t explain the likeness, the names, or any of the other things, but what I told you is true. I have a life, a past, a brother, in the future, and I see now that my being here has only caused pain.

  He wanted to write how he envied the man she thought him to be, how no other woman had ever made him even think about falling in love. He wanted to write things to her that came so close to poetry, he would have gagged if it’d been written by another man’s hand. That’s what she did to him; turned him into someone he didn’t recognize, someone better than he was, someone whose life didn’t revolve around himself.

  You must accept what I say as the truth, and believe what you’ve been told about your husband. He died a hero’s death fighting for a cause he believed in. Try to move on with your life. You deserve a loving husband and Connor deserves a father. Evan Hennessey obviously cares a great deal for you, and if he cares for you, he will care for Connor.

  That particular sentence was perhaps the hardest to write.

  I apologize for leaving with only a letter for a goodbye, but this will be easier than me just walking away.

  He didn’t specify that it would be easier for him as well as Callen.

  With the next sentence, he forced the words to remain neutral.

  I will always remember you and my brief stay here with fondness.

  Yours,

  Ty

  He closed his eyes and shook his head at the understatement of those last words.

  Remember her? Hell, her memory would haunt him to his dying day and beyond.

  Fondness? Oh, just a simple little fondness that had set the standard for every other woman in his life - past, present, and future - to live up to.

  He wanted to tell her all of that, as well as that he loved her and if not for his brother he would stay. But he loved Dan, too. Dan needed Ty. Ty needed Callen. And a hundred and fifty years separated them. He folded the paper, wrote her name on the outside, then dripped a pool of hot candle wax on the edge to seal it.

  Just as he propped the letter against a candlestick on the mantel, someone knocked on the door. When he turned to see Callen standing there, he flipped the letter face down, willed his heartbeat to slow back to normal, and asked her to come in.

  After what’d he’d witnessed late that afternoon, he hadn’t expected her to seek him out.

  She stepped into the small parlor, followed by Magnolia and Jacob carrying two trays of covered food. Callen’s slightly bloodshot, red-rimmed eyes held none of the joy or life he’d tried to capture earlier that day under the wisteria.

  “You deserve an explanation,” she said without preamble, her hands clasped at her waist, “and I’ve taken the liberty of inviting myself to dine with you.”

  Ty toyed with telling her that inviting herself was fine, considering Stephen had uninvited him to all the meals in the big house. But she didn’t need one more burden dropped on her.

  “Fine,” he said instead. “Come in. Sit down.” He held a chair at the table for her while Magnolia and Jacob set out the plates of food. He pulled up his own chair, and they sat in uncomfortable silence until the two servants left.

  “Won’t Stephen be upset that you’re here?” Ty asked, already preparing himself for another confrontation with her brother.

  “Stephen is...indisposed in the library,” she said.

  She fidgeted for several seconds, took an inordinate amount of time to place her napkin on her lap, then finally asked, “Would you say grace, please?”

  “Grace? Uh...yeah. Sure.” He bowed his head, searched the depths of his mind for any long-forgotten blessing, then mumbled something he hoped would sound appropriate.

  “Amen,” she whispered when he finished, then looked up, her face filled with dread.

  The silence stretched on after they picked up their forks. Callen rearranged the food on her plate. Ty forced a couple bites between shoving his own food around. Finally he laid down
his fork and looked at her.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you have a son?”

  He’s your son, too. He could read it in her eyes, but she simply took a deep breath and shoved her plate away in silence. For a moment he thought she wasn’t going to answer him.

  “I didn’t want you to know at first.” She looked him in the eye. “You said you weren’t my husband. You had...have...unbelievable stories about who you are. I started to tell you once, in the garden after you fought Stephen, but then Evan interrupted me. I thought your knowing might shock you into...” She glanced away from him, then let the sentence die. “I didn’t know what to do.” Tears welled in her eyes but she blinked them back. “You saw him! I couldn’t have borne it if you had met him with revulsion. Your picking him up, playing with him, holding him, meant so very much to me! No one has ever done that.”

  Ty shook his head, wondering how much scorn she and Connor had suffered. “Club feet aren’t contagious.” He watched some of the misery fade from her eyes. “It’s going to be challenging for him, physically, but he’s a tough little guy. It won’t be easy, but he’ll do fine with your encouragement.”

  Her gaze dropped to the table, then back to him, as if she’d never really thought of Connor’s condition in that way.

  “Why didn’t he stay today?” Ty asked, the scene of mother and son’s goodbye playing over in his mind. “Does he need medical attention? Is he going to a special school?”

  The misery came back then. Tears came, too, so quick, so painful, Ty sat there in shock until she dropped her face into her hands, shoulders shaking with her sobs.

  He scraped back his chair and went to her, his mind racing for what to do. Crying females weren’t something with which he had much experience. Sullen teenagers, yes. Sobbing women...

  “Did I say something wrong?” he asked, an apology in his voice. She shook her head, but her face stayed buried in her hands, her cries silent, as though she had lots of practice keeping her tears quiet. He laid his hand on her shoulder, smoothed away a lock of hair. She crumpled into him then, leaning against him, her head nestled against his stomach, but still the sobs continued.

  He swallowed hard at this gesture for comfort, at her almost tangible pain.

  “Here, now. Come here.” He took her arms, coaxing her out of the chair. She dropped her hands as she rose, buried her face in his chest, slid her arms around his waist and held on for dear life.

  He held her, one hand gently cupping her head, the other rubbing her back. Finally, when the tears showed no sign of letting up, he scooped her into his arms, carried her to the small divan in the parlor, then sat with her across his lap, rocking her, nuzzling the top of her head with his cheek, praying for something comforting to say.

  “It can’t be that bad,” he finally murmured into her hair when nothing wise and healing came to mind.

  She raised her head then, tears still overflowing. Misery painted dark smudges under her eyes and tiny lines across her brow.

  “Stephen has taken Connor from me.” The statement ended with a sob.

  Ty narrowed his eyes and shook his head. Surely that cocky bastard wouldn’t take away his own sister’s child.

  “What do you mean? I don’t under—”

  “Because of Connor’s deformity. When he came home from the war nearly two years ago, saw that I not only had a child, but an imperfect one, he sent my baby to live with a man and woman across the river.”

  Ty sat there, speechless, then pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket for her when the sobs came stronger than ever.

  “Why?” he managed to ask, a red haze of rage spinning into tornado force in his mind.

  She calmed to a snuffle, wiped her eyes, shook her head. A curtain of hair fell from her shoulder, wisping across the back of his hand.

  “He said I needed a husband, and no man, what few are left, would want a woman who couldn’t give him a healthy son.” More tears came, but she calmed herself with a deep breath. “The couple brings Connor for the day. Once a month, but I never know when. I have never seen them up close, I don’t know who they are, I don’t know where they live.” She shook her head. “I am not even certain they live across the river, or if Stephen merely told me that.”

  Totally outraged now, Ty fought to keep his voice soft.

  “Aren’t there laws? Can’t you go to an attorney, or even the...” - what did they have back then? - “the sheriff?”

  Her eyes widened in surprise and she shook her head.

  “I am a woman. You know I have no rights! Even if I did, I have no money, and if I had money, there is no law! There is only the ubiquitous Yankee military presence, and who of those men would care about a Southern woman and her deformed child?” She wiped away fresh tears, then sighed. “They are imposing those Reconstruction Acts upon us. Mississippi has yet to be readmitted into the Union. We are neither part of the Union nor a country of our own. We are simply the defeated, governed by the victor.”

  She rested her head on his shoulder. Ty’s hand automatically rose, his fingers sifting into silky hair to cradle her head in his palm.

  He hadn’t even thought about the repercussions of the war two years later. He knew there’d been rebuilding, controversy, struggling among the devastated Southerners, but he’d never considered how fresh the wounds would still be after two years, how broken the system of government.

  “I would have found him,” Callen said quietly. “I would have taken him from those people and run away, but I had nowhere to run. At least the couple is good to him.” She raised her head and looked to Ty for an answer. “How could I have taken him from food and safety to possibly starve, or be treated as a freak?”

  “You couldn’t.” Ty shook his head and she snuggled back down into his shoulder. “Does Hennessey know about Connor? That you have a son? That he’s handicapped? Or did Stephen expect to keep that a secret and surprise Hennessey with it as a wedding gift?”

  Callen’s breath curled through the fabric of his shirt, around his neck, across his chest.

  “I told Evan. He said it did not matter.” She fidgeted, her body tensing. “He has always...cared for me. But I didn’t tell him how Stephen forced Connor away. I allowed Evan to believe Connor is away getting help. I didn’t want him to think badly of Stephen.” She raised her head, her face only inches from Ty’s. “Stephen is not the same man who left here a young soldier. He was once happy and loving. He would never have done something like this before the war.” She looked off into the distance, into a place only she could see. “There is something dead inside of him. Not from a wound. But he refuses to speak of it. I’ve the feeling this...canker ...eating at him will never heal.” The quiet of the room only magnified her sadness. “I often wonder if he has grown this bitter because of Garrett.”

  Garrett? This was a new name Ty hadn’t heard. He leaned his head back and looked her in the eye.

  “Who is Garrett?”

  She stared, studied his face. “I had hoped you’d remember.” Her sadness deepened as she dropped her gaze in defeat. “He is our brother. He fought for the North. Missing. Presumed dead.”

  Brother against brother. How many times had Ty heard that phrase describing the war?

  “When Stephen returned home and learned about Garrett, he...he scared me with his anger. He ordered every trace of our brother removed from Windsor. I saved most of the pictures and his things, hiding them upstairs here in the cottage, in the farthest reaches of the attic. There is even a picture he sent taken with President Lincoln. I couldn’t allow Stephen to destroy Garrett’s memory.”

  She fell silent then, looking at Ty. Just looking.

  The awareness of her, the warmth, the scent, the curves nestled against his chest and lap, slammed into him in that split second. Her gaze dropped to his lips and she leaned closer, slowly offering herself; a kiss at the very least.

  He shouldn’t do it. Shouldn’t kiss her. Shouldn’t even have her this close. Leaving would be hard enough. Th
e memories of her hovered in his mind already, like ghosts, waiting to haunt him and make his life miserable. Adding to those memories would be masochistic.

  “Kiss me,” she whispered, even as her lips slid across his, soft, moist, achingly sweet. She leaned into him, her hand skimming across his chest, her tongue sending shocks of fire ripping through his blood.

  With a groan he pulled her closer, wrapped his arms around her, buried his fingers in her hair, and did as she asked.

  Her lips, her tongue, teased him, intoxicated him like a shot of Tennessee whiskey. She pulled him down with her, onto the divan, into a swirling sea of mindless need, aching heat. He followed her willingly, pressed her into the cushioned seat. Her lips left his to trace a fiery path of kisses along his jaw, beneath his ear, down his neck, and back again to his lips.

  He couldn’t think. All he could do was feel, and nothing had ever felt this good.

  This right.

  This familiar.

  Her fingers skimmed across his back, one hand into his hair, the other along his waistband. The tiny, helpless noise from deep in her throat exploded in his brain and seared along his nerves. Her hands clutched his shirt, pulled it free, and then the heat of her palms met the bare skin of his back.

  His undoing.

  He rolled to the floor, taking her with him, his mouth never leaving hers as he pulled her atop him. “Callen,” he breathed against her lips. She raised enough to find the buttons on his shirt, her mouth to find the hollow of his throat.