Sycamore Hill

by Francine Rivers

  Chapter Twenty-three

  It seemed fitting that I should leave town by the Oakland stage. My trunk and carpetbag were heaved up and secured to the roof, and Ross helped me into the cab. He held my hand a little longer than necessary.

  Looking back out the side window, I forced a bright smile at Marba who was standing with sad-eyed Katrina on the walkway. Others had come to say good-bye—Matthew Hayes and his brothers, the Poole boys, Margaret Hudson, Chester and Harold Studebaker with their father, and little Toby Carmichael. Elvira Hudson stood with Emily Olmstead, and Elizabeth Hayes was with Dr. Kirk. They all seemed hopeful that even at the last moment I would change my mind and stay. I looked at the doctor, and he smiled, giving me a slow nod of understanding. My smile wavered and then stiffened with purposeful determination. The coach started off, and I gave one last wave and a lingering look at the friends I was leaving. I had only been in Sycamore Hill for five months, and they had been trying ones. But the small town had become my home, more so than Boston had ever been.

  I averted my eyes and did not look back again. A hard knot of pain swelled in my throat. My chest ached. I refused to cry. The time of crying was past. I had my baby to think of now, and I would not let it be born into sadness. I had enough money to start new somewhere, perhaps even San Francisco if I could bear being that close to Jordan. I had already decided I would tell everyone I was widowed. My child would never know differently and would grow up believing that he or she had been conceived in love and marriage. I would give my baby enough love for two parents, and I would work hard to make sure that my child would never lack for security.

  But San Francisco was too close. Perhaps Sacramento. Or maybe north to Portland, Oregon, or even Seattle, Washington. I did not want to go back to the East again. There was nothing there for me, and I loved the West. What did it matter where I went as long as I was far enough away from Sycamore Hill and Jordan Bennett to protect my baby from the truth?

  Would my child look like Jordan? A boy with brown hair, sun-streaked-gold in summer. A boy with sharp blue eyes and a quick intelligence. A boy that would grow tall and broad-shouldered. A sharp pain knifed me in the pit of my stomach as I thought of that possibility. It would be agony to have a son who would grow more like Jordan every day. Yet, it would be wonderful too.

  The coach bounced and jolted as it rolled over the storm-puddled road. It climbed slowly, winding through the hills. Then the road dipped, and we quickened our pace. If all went on schedule, I would reach Oakland by late afternoon. I would stay on for a day in a hotel near the train station. Tomorrow I would decide where I was going to settle.

  My back ached from the constant jarring motion as we bounced along. We stopped twice to water the horses, and I walked around, shaking the stiffness from my limbs after seeking the privacy of the bushes away from the road. Then on we went. Finally exhaustion overcame discomfort, and I slept.

  When I awakened, the stagecoach was stopped. Turning my head, I saw the sun dipping toward the west. We were out of the hills, but there was no sound of a bustling city outside. The stagecoach driver was talking to someone, and I listened with vague interest.

  “Just tie your horse up back there. He’s lathered pretty bad, isn’t he? Looks like you’ve been riding hard. We’ve only got about ten miles to go, and I’m on schedule. So I’ll take it easy. It won’t hurt to be a little late. It’s happened plenty of times before.” The driver laughed.

  Someone answered from the back of the coach, but I could not make out the words. Reins slapped against the back luggage carrier as the stranger tied his mount to the stagecoach. I sighed heavily and leaned my head back again before once more closing my eyes. When I’d left town, I had been thankful that I was alone. I had not wanted, nor felt able, to carry on polite conversation with anyone.

  The door opened, and the vehicle dipped against the weight of the man stepping in. The wheels creaked and started to roll forward again. We were on our way. Ten more miles, the driver had said. Could I feign sleep that long? I felt my silent companion watching me. After a few moments I slowly opened my eyes. I encountered an intense blue gaze from the dust-covered, sweat-stained man sitting opposite me.

  “Jordan!” I breathed in shock and confusion, my eyes widening as I straightened in the seat. A surge of happiness and hope bloomed inside me and then quickly evaporated into frightened suspicion. Why was he here? He had obviously ridden hard to catch up. He looked drawn with exhaustion. The lines were deep around his eyes and mouth.

  He let out his breath as though he had been holding it for a long time. Then he wearily rubbed the back of his neck. “My God!” he muttered. “What a run you’ve given me.”

  I stared at him in growing dismay. Had he guessed why I had left? Had someone told him? Dr. Kirk? No. He didn’t know Jordan was the father of my baby. Marba? No. She had promised not to tell him anything. Why had he come after me? I wondered in panic-stricken silence.

  “I thought you were going to marry Ross.”

  I gasped. “Ross? What made you think that? Just because I stayed at the hotel?”

  “Ross told me he planned to take care of you on a permanent basis.”

  “Ross said that?”

  “Why else do you think I stayed away?” he demanded harshly. “When I found out what had happened, I came to the hotel to talk with you. He greeted me with that piece of news. I just rode out and stayed at the ranch.”

  “I thought you knew I was leaving,” I murmured.

  His eyes snapped. “How could I? You didn’t let me know! And I didn’t have any idea of what your plans were other than what Ross told me. I didn’t know until Matthew Hayes rode out this morning with news from his father that school was closed until further notice. Matthew told me that you had left this morning on the Oakland stage.” Jordan’s face was taut and white.

  “Why are you here?”

  His eyes moved away from mine. He put his booted foot up on the seat, resting his arm on his knee as he rubbed his beard-shadowed face. He looked at me again, but his expression was unreadable. “I wanted to apologize.”

  My heart sank.

  “I’m sorry about what happened at the schoolhouse. I should have been there.” His face was lined, his frown deepening as he assessed my face. “Are you all right now? Jim Olmstead said Hallender beat you up pretty badly.” His face became very pale. “I should have been there! I should have stayed to keep an eye out for you. I shouldn’t have left you alone at all. I knew something was going on in that place. And I left you.”

  “You don’t owe me any apology.” I smiled weakly. “I said some terrible things to you.”

  “About Reva? When my temper had a chance to cool down a little, I knew you had said that because you were afraid. You knew what I wanted....”

  I flushed and looked quickly down at my hands. My knuckles were white.

  “Abby,” he said softly. “Abby, I’m sorry.”

  “You... you haven’t a thing to be sorry about.” I shook my head, unable to look up at him again. I wished he had not come. This only made things harder. It only emphasized how much I loved him for the man he was.

  “Is that why you’re leaving? Because of what happened to you? Or is there something more?”

  “Why else?” I asked, glancing up with sudden trepidation.

  “I thought maybe...” He stopped and looked away. “Never mind.”

  “What did you think?” I asked. My heart was pounding in tension. Did he know? Did he suspect why I was really leaving?

  His mouth curved up in a smile that didn’t reach his intense blue eyes. “I thought maybe you wanted to get as far away from me as you could.”

  “I suppose that’s partly true,” I admitted with a sigh.

  Jordan winced. “I deserved that. I’ve behaved like the biggest ass alive with you,” he said in self-contempt. I started to protest, but he jerked his head in a cutting way. “I’m going to explain a few things to you.”

  “You don’t owe me a
ny explanation about anything.”

  “You’ve got to understand about Gwen.”

  “No!” I averted my eyes so he wouldn’t see the look of pain his wife’s name caused.

  “I met her at a dinner party given by the university dean,” he began, ignoring my protest.

  “Please. I don’t want to hear any of it. It’s nothing to do with me.”

  He gave me a quelling look and continued with his usual ruthless determination. “He was introducing me as ‘a young attorney with promise,’” he said dryly. “I met Gwen’s father first, and then he introduced me to Gwen. She was beautiful, and I was attracted to her. So I started seeing her on a regular basis. I thought I loved her enough to marry her. She agreed to my proposal. When I made plans to return to the West Coast, we argued. She tried every kind of argument and pressure to keep me in Boston. I knew about that time that I didn’t really love her and that we should break off the engagement. That’s when she told me she was pregnant.”

  My face stiffened and went very pale.

  “She thought that would change all my plans about returning here, but it didn’t. So she miscarried.”

  I gasped. “You make it sound like she planned to lose your baby,” I said, slightly defensive. Jordan just looked at me.

  “We stayed in Boston for another six months, and she conceived Linda.”

  What he was saying hurt. I thought of Jordan with his wife, making love with her, and it gnawed at my insides. I looked at Jordan. His face was implacable and cold.

  “I wanted my child born on the ranch; so we came west despite Gwen’s tantrums. She hated everything about California. She was still hoping she could make me go back to Boston, but when she finally realized she couldn’t, she started to drink. It started as a means of hurting me. Then I don’t think she could stop herself. It was like a sickness. Thank God, Reva was there to take care of Linda,” he said, looking away and staring out the window as the land rolled by. A muscle worked in his jaw.

  “During one of her binges Gwen told me her first pregnancy and the miscarriage had been a neat little invention to keep me in Boston.”

  My mouth gaped open at him. He still stared grimly out the window.

  “She told me I could have been a famous, rich attorney who would rub elbows with the Boston elite, instead of a dime-a-dozen rancher in California.” His mouth twisted in bitter memory. “The age-old female trick to get a man to marry her, and I fell for it like a fool. We both suffered for my stupidity.”

  I felt very cold. I was grateful that Jordan did not know or suspect anything about the baby I carried. He would believe I intended doing the same thing Gwendolyn Bracklin-Reed had done—trapping him into an unwanted marriage.

  Jordan looked at me, his mouth drawn down, his eyes glittering with remembered anger. “Can you have any idea how I felt when she told me that? I think I could have killed her, but by that time I pitied her. She couldn’t help what she was. She had been reared to put status above everything, to look for a man rich enough and socially accepted enough to give her all her dreams. We didn’t want the same things. But she could never accept that. She made my life, and her own, a misery.” He leaned back. “I swore when she died that no woman would ever get to me again. I’d been a fool over one once, and I wasn’t going to be again for any price.”

  The hardness of his face eased, and his mouth turned up in a half-smile as he looked at me again. “Then you came along, stumbling along the road like some lost, dust-covered waif. You remember what happened?”

  “I fell flat on my face,” I muttered with a self-contemptuous smile.

  “And you laughed at yourself. I liked you before you ever turned around. And when you did...He shook his head, and his smile softened. “Then I realized who you were, and knew what would happen if you showed up in town with me by your side. You wouldn’t have had a job waiting for you.”

  “I understood that later. But you might have explained.”

  “I wasn’t in an expansive mood by that time. All I could think of was what a waste of a beautiful woman. Then I realized where my thoughts were leading.”

  I concentrated on keeping my expression cool. What Jordan was saying made me happy, because I knew he had been attracted to me from the first. But it changed nothing. If he found out I was pregnant, he would remember Gwendolyn Bracklin-Reed’s tactics in trapping him. He would feel obligated to marry me, and what attraction he had would be destroyed like the fragile, meaningless thing it was. Hadn’t it happened once before?

  “I waited around at the store to make sure you got there all right. Then I tried to explain why I left you walking.”

  “My reputation.” I smiled slightly. “I know. I realized later when Mr. Olmstead listed the rules.”

  “I wanted you to keep your job.” Jordan smiled, and there was a certain look in his eyes that made my heart pound.

  “Every time you spoke with that Boston accent of yours, I was reminded of the fact that you were Boston-born and bred. Marriage to the right man, love or not. But I was still attracted. I thought myself a fool all over when I found excuses to see you. The more I saw you, the less you were like what I expected. But it seemed every time we met, we argued for some reason or another. Then you accused me of being Diego’s father.”

  I flinched. “I’m sorry.”

  He gave a harsh laugh. “I was almost glad you believed it,” he admitted. “It was the excuse I needed to leave you alone. If you thought all the gossip was true, then I could....” He shook his head in self-derision. “It didn’t work. I still wanted you, whatever the town was telling you about me. I enjoyed baiting you.” He smiled. “It was better arguing with you than making love to anyone else.”

  He stopped. His eyes were searching for something in my face. I concentrated on showing nothing. Want, not love, I reminded myself. And Gwen’s trick, I must remember that. Jordan must not know how I felt and what I carried inside me.

  Jordan sighed. “Then the schoolhouse. When I found you outside....” He stopped. “And then the business about a ghost. I stayed around that night to watch over you. When I saw the lantern was lit, I came in at a run. You were standing there with the light behind you. I never wanted a woman so much as I did then. I didn’t stop to think. It's a good thing you did say what you did, or I would have made love to you there, on the floor.”

  As he had in the field. I remembered what he had said there, and I remembered what he had said at the schoolhouse. It was all true. I was a hypocrite of the worst kind, and I had spread myself like a whore for him. I tried desperately to steady myself.

  “Abby,” Jordan said softly. “Abby, please don’t look like that.” He leaned forward, his hand starting to reach for mine. I pressed back jerkily. He stopped.

  “I wanted you so much,” he said softly, his eyes not leaving me. “I hurt with wanting you. I thought you felt the same, and when you pushed me away, I got mad. I wanted to hurt you because you could just draw back from me so easily when I needed you so damned much.” He let out his breath. “I didn’t stop to think. When you mentioned Reva, that hurt. That you could think that of me. God, it really hurt! And I wanted to hurt you as badly.” He searched my face. “I did, didn’t I?” I did not answer, and he looked down at his hands.

  “And then I just left you alone... and vulnerable. And Hallender damn near killed you. My God,” he said shakily, and he looked up at me with tortured eyes. His hand shook slightly as he reached across to lightly touch my face. “It still shows where he hit you.”

  I drew back from his touch, afraid of what I would show. He felt guilty about what had happened to me. I could see that. But it still changed nothing. I forced a smile. “I’m all right now, really. You mustn’t feel you were to blame for what happened. That’s ridiculous. What did you think you should have done? Remained there in the hills, guarding me? Hallender waited until you were gone. He wasn’t going to do anything as long as there was a chance someone would see him. So don’t take any responsibility.�
�� I did not want him to feel guilty or obligated in any way.

  “There’s something else I have to tell you,” Jordan said slowly. When I had drawn away from him, he had leaned back, careful to keep his hands on his legs so that I knew he wasn’t going to try and touch me again. He let out his breath, his eyes moving uneasily away from mine. He moved restlessly, seeming suddenly very taut and discomforted. All his self-assurance had gone. “About what happened at the river...” he said slowly, and I flinched.

  “I’d rather not talk about that, if you don’t mind.”

  “No, I don’t suppose you do.”

  He shifted again, and his fingers coursed through his hair and then rubbed the back of his neck. His eyes flickered to mine and then away. I frowned. This was a side of Jordan I did not know. He was afraid, and more, he was embarrassed.

  “I had a plan,” he sighed, the words dragging out.

  “A plan?”

  He did not speak for a moment, and I watched his face in growing confusion.

  “Things couldn’t have been worse between us after I came to see you in your room after Hayes reinstated Diego. You remember that night?”

  How could I ever forget? I thought.

  “I knew something was going on between you and Ross. He let it slip to me that he knew you were tutoring Diego, and he couldn’t have found out from me. Everyone else on the ranch was careful not to say anything either, knowing what it would mean to you if word got out. So that left you. You were seeing Ross, and you trusted him enough to tell him. You trusted Ross Persall, but you couldn’t trust me. I was jealous as hell. So I made a plan.”

  He paused again, frowning. “I knew you responded to me after that night in your room.” My face turned red. “I wanted you,” he went on, “and I sure as hell didn’t want Ross Persall getting anywhere near you. I thought if I could just get you away from town and alone for a while, things would take their natural course. I thought everything had worked out. And then you said you hated me. I slapped you. You ran away.”