by Holly Bush
She shook her head. “Please.”
He came close enough that she could smell his shaving soap. He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing lightly and pulling her closer yet. He rubbed his palms up and down her arms. It was strangely intimate and she let herself feel the pressure of his hands and fingers draining the ever-present tension from her body. She couldn’t remember a time, not a minute, not a tick of a watch when she was able to relax and let her worries fade behind some momentary pleasure. It was no wonder that Madeline said that it was as if she lived her life as a soldier might during the heat of a battle, constantly vigilant with no relief from danger and obligations.
She let out a long, slow breath and let her eyes close.
“Please what?” he asked.
Annie knew that he would continue with his questions until she answered him. She consciously let go of the quiet peace she’d been feeling for the last few minutes and looked into his eyes. “I killed Teddy. There’s no denying it.”
“I don’t believe it,” he said and squeezed her shoulders, searching her face with his eyes. “I’ll never believe it.”
“I’d told Teddy, I’d begged him, to stay in the cabin no matter what, to hide as best he could. I told him I loved him and went out to the porch carrying my rifle. But they took it from me. They stripped away my clothes and dragged me out into the yard. They’d killed Daddy some years before, and I imagine they’d always meant to inflict some final humiliation on his daughter.”
“Who were they?”
Annie looked up at him, and the tears around her eyes caught the sunlight from the gap in the barn boards behind him. He focused on her glinting lashes and face to keep himself from shaking her until she told him who the men were who’d hurt her. But he knew she would need gentleness to retell her story, and he slowly lifted his hand from her shoulder and touched her cheek with his knuckles.
She shrugged and leaned her face into his hand, closing her eyes. “They all wore masks or white hoods.”
“But you knew some of them, didn’t you? The Thurmans, right? You said they killed your father.”
“The one holding me was Bertram Miles. I recognized his voice, and he knew I did and smacked me so hard I thought he’d broken my jaw.”
There was a hardening in his mind then, a firming up of a position or a plan, instantly recognizable as a commitment to kill Miles and Thurman, at the very least. No lengthy process of weighing alternatives was required. He would kill them without a moment’s regret. The only thing to be yet determined was the where and the when.
“I’m guessing Teddy didn’t stay inside.”
She shook her head slowly. “No. No, he didn’t. I should never have screamed. I should have known that he’d try and defend me. I should have let it happen and kept my mouth closed. They wouldn’t have killed me, I don’t think, otherwise I’d not live to suffer my disgrace and they’d have been disappointed in the outcome.”
“There is no way to stop a body’s natural reaction to fear or pain. It’s nearly impossible. I have some experience with that, Annie, having served all those years.”
She turned and walked to the other side of the loft to the opening where the hay could be dropped. “Jeremiah already had himself out of his pants, stroking himself while he watched Miles pinching and pulling on my breasts so hard I was crying.”
“Jeremiah?”
“Jeremiah Thurman. The oldest Thurman son, and no crueler man ever walked the earth.”
“Does he live with his father?”
“No. He disappeared. No one seems to know what happened to him.”
“How fortunate.”
“Yes. At least I don’t have to see him on my rare trips to town.”
“What happened then?”
She turned around to face him. “Teddy must have climbed out a back window. He came tearing around the side of the house with a long knife in his hand, waving it back and forth. I screamed for him to run, but old man Thurman knocked the knife away and picked him up by the shirt. They were all laughing at him, and I was begging them to do whatever they wanted with me and leave him alone. But Thurman carried him into the barn, and another one of them threw a rope over that rafter right there.” She pointed. “They tied one end of the rope around his neck and yanked on the other. Even Miles swore softly when they did it, and the other men in the yard just stood there looking at poor Teddy swinging and grabbing for the noose. Miles let me go when they dropped him to the floor. I ran to him, screaming and naked. I held him in my arms and kissed his cheek and closed his eyes. He was gone, though. When I looked up, they’d all left. Madeline found me sometime later.”
He walked to her and took her hands in his, holding them close to his chest.
“If I’d just been quiet, Teddy would be alive.”
“Teddy died doing exactly what you were trying to do for him. He wanted to save you, and he did. Don’t diminish his sacrifice.”
“Is that what I do?” She looked up at him with trembling lips. “Do I make his death small?”
“Heroism comes in all sizes and ages and is not only the providence of men. Cowardice is the same. You and Teddy were heroic in your love for each other. Unfortunately, one of you was going to be sacrificed—it was inevitable, considering the sort of men you were dealing with.”
She stood silently for a few long minutes before looking up at him and squeezing his hands. “Thank you. I’d never thought of him as a hero, only as a frightened child, and it wasn’t fair of me. He did everything he could do to save me, even if it wasn’t enough to save him.”
Matt pushed an errant strand of hair from her face and smiled. “He was a good brother, and he was lucky to have you as a sister.”
“He was and so was I—lucky, that is.”
Suddenly the air was charged with something other than the tense emotional air of the retelling. Matt didn’t think he was the only one to feel it, either. He succumbed to his lesser self and touched his lips to hers. She stayed still and quiet while he kissed the corners of her mouth, touching her cheek with his hand as he did. And then her shoulders dropped, the tension, it seemed, melting away. She tilted her head to kiss him back. He opened his eyes while their lips still touched.
“You’re such a beautiful woman.”
She stared at him, taking her time to let her eyes roll over his face and back to his lips. She leaned into him then, and he was lost. He kissed her with abandon, sliding his tongue into her mouth and drawing her against him, thigh to thigh, her breasts pressed against his chest. She reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling his head closer and running her fingers through his hair. He drew a hand up her side, under her arm, ’til his hand touched the swell of her breast. Her eyes opened quickly and she let out a short gasp. He set her away from him, just holding her hands in his.
“I’m sorry,” they both said at the same time.
“This is my fault,” he said and listened to his heart pound in his ears. “I should have, well, this is why I should be sleeping out here with you inside.”
“I don’t know what happened. I got frightened, but I have no reason to be frightened of you. None at all.”
“I don’t ever want you to be afraid of me. I’d never hurt you.”
“I know that,” she said and smiled softly. “You were a cranky patient sometimes but you didn’t frighten me.”
“Cranky?” he said with a laugh. He shook his head and sobered. “If my men were here they’d most likely agree.”
Annie stared at him, his face, his shoulders and muscular arms. He was masculine, and it was a strange thing to think of him—not that he wasn’t, but she was acquainted with lots of men, and they were all masculine, weren’t they? It wasn’t just that he was tall and broad and handsome and could swallow her up in his arms, it was that he made her aware of her breasts and her private parts, and of his male parts, too.
“Well, come in for dinner,” she said and hurried to the ladder, desperate suddenly to get awa
y from him.
“This is a very special day,” Annie said with a smile and sat down at her place.
“I didn’t think I was ever going to get out of that bed, miss. I’m indebted to you all over again,” Ben said as he sat at the table on a chair with a thick pillow, a blanket around his back and over his arms, even though the cabin was still hot after a typical July day. The crutches Matt had made leaned against the wall near him.
“What’s this?” Matt said as he came into the cabin. “Who invited this old coot to sit at your table, Annie?”
“Get yourself washed up, boy,” Ben said. “I’ve been smelling this chicken roasting all day and I mean to pick up a fork and knife and eat like a gentleman.”
“I’m washed up already. Annie, can I help you with something?” Matt said.
“No. Go ahead and sit down. I’m fixing Ben’s plate.” She put the plate of food that she had filled from the platters on the table in front of him. “I cooked too much. I told you, Ben. You should have stopped me.” She laughed.
“Aren’t we going to say a prayer?” Ben asked.
“I suppose it’s fitting,” she said as she seated herself. She reached across the table to hold Ben’s hand and turned when Matt picked up her other.
It had been weeks since she’d told him about Teddy, which had led to their kiss in the barn. She’d not forgotten it, though; in fact, she’d thought about it every night before she fell asleep. It made her squirm in her skin thinking about his tongue in her mouth and the bristles of his beard brushing her face. But after that kiss, by unspoken mutual consent it seemed, neither of them got close to or was alone with the other. As much as the thought of him touching her pestered her thoughts night and day, she also knew the outcome. She knew that he would be leaving. She knew it. There was nothing to hold him to Bridgewater, let alone to her. It would be silent as a grave around her cabin when they left and she would miss them both, but she would have been a fool not to admit to herself that she would miss Matt Gentry desperately. She would be alone to tend a broken heart.
“Dear God, I’m blessed to be at this table, eating this food. I’m blessed to have known the Gentrys and this young woman. I thank you, dear Lord, for all that I have received. Amen.”
“I’m starved,” Matt said and dug into his dinner.
“When haven’t you been starved at mealtime?” Ben looked at Annie. “Miss Eleanor told me that when she planned meals, she counted this one as two even when he was a youngin.”
Annie laughed. “I can see why. His appetite is surely back. What was he like as a boy?”
“Ornery. Ornery and forever getting into what he shouldn’t have been doing. Scared his mother half to death a few times. One time, he was in the woods fetching something from the springhouse for his mother and didn’t come back. Beauregard, his father, found him up a tall maple, sound asleep the following morning. Miss Eleanor hugged him hard and kissed his head ten times when he was finally home and then made him scrub every floor in the house.”
“How did you end up in a tree?” Annie asked.
Matt buttered a piece of dark bread and dunked it in chicken gravy. “Well, Mother sent me there for cream she needed for her cooking but she must have forgotten that she’d used all of it the day before. There was none there when she sent me, and I saw a raccoon going up a tree. I meant to catch it. There was no cream to take to her, after all.”
Ben and Annie laughed, and Matt smiled one of his rare smiles. She could picture him as a mischievous and fun-loving boy and the darling of a loving family. She was desperately jealous of him and couldn’t help wondering why he would stay away from his home for so long.
“I’m sure you’re anxious to see your mother and all of your family,” she said and looked at him. His smile faded and he concentrated on moving his peas onto his fork with his knife.
“We can’t hurry Ben, but I imagine you’re ready to see the backs of us.” Matt stood abruptly, thanked her for dinner, and went out the door.
“I didn’t mean anything by it, Ben,” she said to him. “You’re not ready to travel, and I’m glad of the company. I never meant I wanted you to leave.”
“I didn’t think you did. Matt’s been gone a long time. Life at Paradise has gone on without him, and now the person that he should and probably would want to talk to about his leaving all those years ago, his father, is dead and gone.”
“What did they argue about?”
“I haven’t any idea. He and Beauregard were butting heads regularly about that time. He was, and still is, much like his father, although he’d never admit it.”
“He told me that he should have just found a place to hide and sleep off his anger but he didn’t. He found a Confederate troop and joined. He said he went to a battle at Gettysburg in Pennsylvania.”
“Gettysburg? That boy was at Gettysburg? He’s lucky he’s alive.”
“You didn’t know? Didn’t he send any letters?”
He shook his head and looked at the door Matt had just gone out of. “Just two. Both addressed to his mother. One during the war and one written shortly after it ended. I’ve seen Miss Eleanor read those letters time and again,” he whispered.
“Whatever would cause him to give his mother so much worry?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t know if he does, either.”
Matt watched Annie hang wet clothes over a stretch of cord near the garden. Ben was sitting on a wooden chair watching her and talking her ear off from what he could tell. It seemed as though Ben, who spoke few words all of Matt’s growing up years, couldn’t stop talking since he’d woken up after their ‘dunk in the river,’ as he liked to call it.
“Matt? Matt?” Ben called over his shoulder. “Come help me in the house. I’m ready to rest.”
Matt helped him up, got his crutches under his arms, and walked beside him on the slow trip to the porch. It took a few tries but Ben took the step himself and shook off Matt’s arm to walk in the cabin alone.
“I’m getting there, son,” Ben said. “Every day I try and do a little more. Stay awake a little longer. Walk a little farther, even if it is with these crutches. I suppose I’m lucky to have a leg at all. We’ve got to get home to Paradise.”
“I know you’re trying Ben. Just a little longer ’til you have all your strength back.”
Matt watched him go inside, sit down on the bed, and lie back on the pillows with a sigh. He wandered back to where Annie was still hanging clothes.
“He’s doing better,” she said without turning.
“He is.”
“You’ll be going home soon, I imagine.”
It was strange, Matt thought to himself, that home these days seemed less like Paradise and more like Annie Campbell’s run-down cabin. What was life going to be like without her? And when had he decided that his life included her? She was nearly a stranger. A kind, hard-working one, but still . . . just a chance meeting. What if there hadn’t been that meeting? He and Ben would most likely be dead. Long washed away down the river, just two bloated bodies that would be stumbled upon by a passerby who would maybe wonder who they were and where they came from and if they had loves in their lives.
Matt had loves. Being near death had cleared and crystallized some things in his head with little effort on his part. But they were suddenly clear. He loved his mother and sister and brother and his father, too. He loved Paradise. He even loved crotchety old Ben Littleship. And how could he face his loved ones, especially his mother? He’d ignored them when they surely were worried for him while he’d caroused, drank, and spent time with hardened men.
“We will,” he said and helped stretch out a wet pair of pants to hang on the line. “It’s time I got there.”
Annie walked back to the laundry pot and pulled a shirt out of the boiling water. She dipped it in clear water he’d hauled from her well. “I used to think I liked living alone, but you and Ben have reminded me that not everyone is a bad person. I’m going to miss you both.”
&
nbsp; “Why don’t you come with me?” He wondered if the words had even come out of his mouth or if they’d only been in his mind. He knew in the next moment that he’d said them aloud.
“This is my home. My property. You’re being kind because I helped you, but you’re not thinking clear. Can you just see me walk into your mother’s home? Can you imagine what she’d think of me? No. This is my life, pitiful as it seems, but still mine.”
“My mother would welcome anyone I brought home.”
“Bring home? As in what? A friend? A willing woman hoping for something more?”
“I didn’t imply that at all. Only that I don’t want to leave you here.”
She smiled at him, although she was angry—he could tell from the fire in her eyes. “I don’t imagine you’re accustomed to not getting your way, Matthew Gentry. But you’re not leaving me behind. I never had any intentions of going with you.”
“You could start over in Winchester. Leave this ramshackle place and the Thurmans behind you. I know there is more to this story. I know it. Otherwise there is no reason for you to be as afraid as you are. What else happened here, Annie?”
“What else?” she shouted. “What else? Wasn’t dragging my father’s body home on a tarp enough? Wasn’t watching Teddy die enough? Wasn’t it enough that I never slept while the Confederates were around, dozing at the slit in the cabin wall holding my rifle and letting Teddy get some rest while I waited for them to come and take the last chicken and hog from me?”
She came at him then, still screaming, crying, and pounding her fists on his chest. He stroked her hair and held her hands loosely over his heart. “Shhh,” he said. “Quiet now. Easy.”
“This is my home,” she said looking up at him with a tearstained face. “If it’s ramshackle then so am I.”
“It’s not ramshackle. I should never have said it was. It’s your home and where all your memories of your family are. You opened it without thought to Ben and me. I’ll always be grateful.”