Finally she pulled away and defiantly surveyed the property that had once been a beautiful forest. Now it was nothing more than gray soil and stumps—hundreds of them, perhaps thousands, stretching to each side and far back of the cabin. Back to where she knew without actually knowing, the boundaries of her property reached. “Clear cut?”
“Yep,” was all he allowed himself to say, else he knew he wouldn’t be able to contain his anger.
“Haslett?”
“Hopefully. I wouldn’t like to think there were two maniacs loose on the land.”
Molly stared wildly at the devastation, which was worse than any storm damage she had ever seen. It reminded her of stories about battlefields during the war. Thankfully, there were no human victims.
Yet, there were. Now Travis couldn’t go to school—or the others. In despair she started to run across the ravaged terrain. Rubal caught her, held her by the shoulders.
“You’ll hurt yourself, love. Those flimsy shoes…” Together they surveyed the ruins of this once-beautiful forest. Everything had been cut to within a foot of the ground—loblollies, longleafs, red oak, white oak, cypress, everything.
Molly pulled away. “I want to walk…”
“Be careful,” he cautioned, walking beside her with an arm tightly around her shoulders.
“Could Cliff Parker have done this?”
“No. I’d stake my life on that. I ran into him yesterday at the timber office. Said he’d filed the papers, lined up a crew. They still planned to get started first thing Monday morning.”
Molly turned a stricken face him, her eyes bright with tears. “What will I do now?”
Rubal drew her to his chest, held her while tears streamed from her eyes.
“How will Travis go to school? And the others? How will I ever, ever…”
“Sh, Molly love. Sh. We’ll think of something. I’ll help you. We’ll find a way.”
She clasped him tightly, holding him as if for dear life. “Oh, Jubal, if I didn’t have you…”
“Sh,” he consoled. “Sh.” But his mind strayed to his own problem. After this, how in hell could he break such devastating news to her?
Filled with despair, they headed back to the Blake House. “There’ll be a way,” he assured her. “There’ll be a way, and we’ll find it. Together.”
Molly fought to restrain her tears. They were only trees, after all. She should be grateful for that. No one had been hurt. No one was ill. Her gaze turned to the man she had come to love so much. Like he said, they would find a way.
A way—some way—to send Travis to school and keep the family together. But whatever would it be? She would have a fight on her hands, now. She knew that. But she had Jubal to help; they’d find a way.
Like Travis had announced at Sunday dinner, they were a family. For the first time since their mother died, they were a family again.
When she caught Rubal’s eye, their gazes held, and her words surprised him.
“We didn’t even get to…” She shrugged, embarrassed to speak so boldly.
He winked. “We will. One of these days.”
“One of these days we may even make it to that feather bed.”
“One of these days real soon, Molly love. That’s something no one can take away from us.”
Twenty minutes later, however, when they rode up the Blake House lane, Rubal realized that he could be wrong about just about anything.
“Hey, Rube, you ol’ sonofagun! Where’ve you been all afternoon?”
Rubal had dismounted and was assisting Molly from her saddle. His brother’s shouted greeting struck him a blow that would have felled a virgin pine. His brain spun to a stop. His hands froze on Molly’s waist. As though his arms had turned to stone, he set her on her feet, not daring to look down the path to the porch. Knowing what he would find. Or rather, whom he would find. Panic swept through him like a forest fire.
They were identical twins. Molly saw that in a moment, then quickly admonished herself. She’d known as much for some time now. When she turned to the man at her side, she noticed his jaws were clenched. Splotches of white, sprouted on his cheeks, making the small scar on his temple stand out like candle wax against his browned skin. His hand gripped her elbow with a death grip.
Her first thought was that he’d lied to her about her night in the barn with his brother meaning nothing to him. Or else coming face to face with his brother showed him the truth. Obviously, it mattered a great deal to him.
For that matter, Molly wasn’t sure how she felt, either. She loved the man at her side—and he loved his brother. How could she stand beside Jubal and face Rubal? One man, she loved. The other, she hated.
But she had given her body to both of them. One in love, the other in lust. Striving to control her runaway senses, Molly moved closer to Jubal.
“What’re you doing here?” she heard him say. His voice was strained. She ached for him.
“Came to settle things up.”
“You were supposed to wire…”
“Thought I’d put in an appearance. Never been to the Piney Woods before, and your reports were so glowing.” The visitor glanced at Molly then, and she quaked. Determined to stand beside the man she loved, Molly prayed for strength and lifted her eyes to Jubal’s brother.
No recognition greeted her. It was as though he had forgotten not only Molly, but their night of passion. He raised his eyebrows as if to acknowledge the source of those glowing reports.
The man beside her flinched. “You remember Molly Durant, Rub—?” But their visitor was already sweeping his Stetson across his waist.
“Can’t say as we ever met. I’m Jubal Jarrett, Miss Durant. Heard an awful lot about you from ol’ Rube here. Mighty happy to make your acquaintance at long last.”
Molly’s mouth fell open; her heart thudded to a stop. Her brain refused to function, except to fill her head with a sickening, dizzying roar. What in the world was happening? She turned to the man at her side, the man she loved. His stricken face fueled her confusion—and her fear. “What…?”
She looked from one brother to the other. Still no recognition on the face of their visitor. Only a furrowed brow, an expression of confusion in his familiar brown eyes. Except they weren’t familiar.
She turned wide eyes on the man at her side. The man she loved, who looked as though he had been struck a bitter blow. The agony on his face mirrored that inside her heart. And suddenly the truth hit her. She didn’t know both of these men. One was a stranger; the other…
“Dang it, Molly,” Rubal was saying. “I didn’t mean for you to find out this way.”
“You’re not…?” The words wouldn’t form, but the facts were clear without them. His eyes searched hers; she watched his pulse beat rapidly, saw his chest rise and fall. “All this time…” The past few weeks flashed before her eyes, everything she had shared with this man—her dreams, her fears, her love, her body—with the wrong man.
“You let me believe…”
“Dang it, Molly—”
“We were going to be married?” She looked from one stunned brother to the other. A wave of weakness washed over her. “No, I guess not—”
“Yes, we were,” Rubal interrupted. “We are. Molly, listen.” When he moved toward her, she stepped back, shying away from his touch. “It wasn’t a lie,” he insisted. “None of it.”
Her knees felt like they were about to buckle. Her head spun. “Except your name?”
Rubal tossed his head skyward, as though looking to the heavens for help.
Finally anger fought through the suffocating layer of pain in Molly’s heart to become anguish. “Who was I supposed to marry? Would I have ended up married to Jubal—” She cast a withering glance at their unexpected guest, then stared Rubal down. “Married to Jubal and living with you? Or would I have been…his wife?”
“Molly, I was going to tell you Monday. Before I left for Orange, I was going to tell you everything.”
She fought tears, fo
ught them valiantly, fought and lost, for before she could help herself, hot tears rolled down her cheeks. When Rubal moved to wipe them away, she jumped back like he’d shot her. Furiously she rubbed at her face.
“M—Monday?” she stammered. “Monday, before you left.” Suddenly she knew if she didn’t get away from these two despicable men, she wouldn’t be able to control herself. “Well, now you don’t have to bother.” Turning she ran up the path, inside the house, up the stairs, at last throwing herself onto her bed, weeping, weeping.
Jubal stared after the distraught Miss Durant. “Looks like I stirred up a den of rattlers.”
Rubal heaved a deep sigh. He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “Not your fault, Jube. Not your fault.” Without further explanation, he sprinted to the house, raced up the stairs, and barged into Molly’s bedroom. His heart thrashed inside his chest like a struggling steam engine.
“Molly?”
The sound of his voice pulled racking sobs from deep inside her. Why hadn’t she closed the door? “Go away.”
“Not until I explain.” He approached the feather bed, his heart in his throat. The colorful patterns of her crazy-quilt coverlet spun before his eyes. In the middle of the big feather bed, Molly lay curled in a tight ball, as though to fend off an assault—from him. He felt like he was drowning in despair. In his wildest dreams of this bed he had never envisioned coming to it under these circumstances.
Moisture blurred his vision. His heart felt permanently lodged in his throat. His knees touched the mattress. Feather, she’d said. “Molly, sit up. Let—let me explain.”
“There’s nothing to explain.” She cried into crossed arms. When he tried to turn her over, she tensed. He removed his hands, feeling them tremble.
“Go away. Just go away. You got what you came for. Now, go.”
“I love you, Molly.” The words rasped from his throat. “I love you so much life wouldn’t be worth living without you.”
She could hear the pain in his voice, and the trembling of fear. Somewhere deep inside, she believed him. Or wanted to.
But she dared not. Not again. “Don’t expect me to believe any more of your lies.”
“It’s true, dang it. It’s true. Nothing else was a lie. I swear it. Nothing else.”
“Except your name. You let me fall in love with the wrong man.”
“No, with the right man.”
“The right man wouldn’t have left me like you did in the first place.”
“I know that now. It was like I said, Molly. I wasn’t ready to think about settling down. I got scared.”
He sat on the bed beside her and reached a hand toward her heaving back. Gently he began to rub her shoulders, between them, across them. Every time she shuddered against his hand, he felt like a knife had been thrust into his lying heart.
When she tried to shake off his hand, he doubled over her and buried his face in her hair. He thought about the afternoon they had planned, about the disaster they found in the forest.
A disaster, yes. And one had awaited them at home. “I was scared,” he repeated, “but nothing like I am right this minute.”
She heaved another shuddering sob. His lungs expanded; he felt like they were going to burst inside his chest. Tears brimmed in his eyes. He tried to turn her over, but she held her body in its rigid ball.
“Get out, Jubal…or…whoever the hell you are. Get out of this house…leave…before the children come.”
Thoughts of the kids brought a bigger lump to Rubal’s throat. “I’ll explain to them, Molly; they’ll understand.”
Molly shook him off then, forcing him to sit back. She could feel him there, though, beside her on the bed. So close she could reach out and touch him. So close she could throw herself in his arms and tell him how much she loved him and that it didn’t matter what his name was, she loved him and always would.
But it did matter. He had lied to her in the most intimate way. And if she allowed him to, he would lie again. Sitting up, she took care not to meet his eye. When he reached toward her, she scooted across the mattress and off the bed on the opposite side. “Get out. Leave. Go away. Please. Before the children—”
“Molly, listen to me. Let’s talk about it. Please.”
The tremors in his voice were almost her undoing. She gritted her teeth and prayed the right words came out. The right words, sending him away. Not the wrong words—the words she longed to say—I forgive you. I love you. Please don’t leave me. Ever. “Leave,” she whispered as forcefully as she could manage. “Now.”
Rubal stood, head bowed. “I’ll be back. Soon as the Rangers round up Haslett, I’ll be back.”
The thought of having to face him again shot through her like a well-aimed arrow, and all she wanted to do was to curl up and die. But she couldn’t. She had the children.
“No,” she managed. The pain inside her was real—devastating, acute. Her head throbbed with it; her heart pounded with it; her lungs constricted with it. If she survived this nightmare once, it would be by sheer force of will. She couldn’t live through such pain again.
She summoned what was surely her last ounce of strength. “Don’t you dare come back to this house. Not ever again. Not ever.” She turned to face the window.
Helplessly, he watched her stand, arms gripped around her chest, shoulders tensed. A warm summer breeze blew through her bedroom windows, fluttering the lace casement curtains, showering the room with soft air and the poignant scent of honeysuckle. Unaware of the tears that rolled down his face, Rubal turned and left.
Just when she thought she couldn’t stand to remain in the same room with him a second longer, she heard him leave. The door closed gently behind him.
And that was her undoing. Gently, as though he cared. Gently, the way he had always treated her.
Gently, as he had lied.
Chapter Sixteen
After Rubal left, Molly lay on her bed until Sugar’s supper bell sounded. Her tears exhausted, she reflected on the turn her life had taken—from happy to dismal to desperate in a matter of hours.
The timber had been cut. Could Rubal be responsible for that? In her heart she was certain the answer was a resounding no. Yet, who? Had she been a random target? The timing indicated not. The timing.
When she thought she had lost everything to keep her material life and the children’s going, Jubal, who turned out not to be Jubal at all, had been there to stand beside her, to love her.
And in the space of a heartbeat even that love, the most precious love she had ever imagined, had been taken away. Like seeds on the wind, his love had been just that—not the love he professed, but a guise hiding not only his feelings, but his identity. A game played by a fool, signifying nothing, as the poet had written. Or was it a game played by an idiot?
Whatever, life wasn’t poetry, and she had been left with no control over hers. At least, none she could determine. Anna Taylor had spoken the truth: Molly couldn’t hope to make enough money from the boarding house to raise the children; certainly she couldn’t send them to school with the amount of money the Blake House brought in.
So what was the answer? What was she to do? If it were only herself, she would be tempted to lie here and die. Being deceived twice by the same man left her feeling not only violated, but half-witted. Cleatus had been right to say she needed his business sense.
She did. But Jubal—Rubal—had proved that she didn’t need anything else from Cleatus. This brought another rush of tears. Why had that damned Jarrett returned? Now he had ruined her life, not once, but twice.
And she had allowed him to—both times. The only consolation, and it really didn’t matter anymore, was that she hadn’t given her body to two men. She flushed, recalling the times she’d discussed that very thing with Jubal, who hadn’t been Jubal at all, but was Rubal all along. He probably had a good laugh over that. The two of them, twins no less, were probably laughing over it at this very moment.
Sickened and embarrassed by the debacle,
she thanked her unlucky stars that she’d possessed the presence of mind to send him away. Then and there. Away, so she would never have to face him again.
When she didn’t appear downstairs to help set up for supper, Lindy came to her room. Receiving no response to her knock, Lindy opened the door and crossed to sit on the side of the bed where Molly lay huddled.
Finally Molly mustered enough of her senses to recall the duties of the Blake House. “Can you and Sugar handle things tonight?”
Lindy nodded, staring down at the braided rug. Long strands of hair hid her face from Molly’s view.
Curious, Molly reached to pull back Lindy’s hair. The sight of her little sister’s swollen eyes brought a return of her own tears.
“What is it, Lindy?”
Lindy burst into tears, and the sisters fell in each other’s arms.
“He’s gone,” Lindy whispered.
“It’s best.”
Lindy pulled away. “How can you say that? You love him.”
“He lied, Lindy. He isn’t Jubal Jarrett, he’s his…his twin brother, Rubal.”
Lindy frowned. “Why would he do that?”
“To deceive me.”
“But…I don’t understand. Did you know him before?”
Molly nodded.
“Which one? Jubal or Rubal?”
“Rubal.” Molly sighed, wondering whether to tell Lindy, and if so, how much.
“Why did he lie? It doesn’t make sense.”
“He thought it did. He came to a dance here at the Blake House. A year or so ago, while Mama was still alive.”
“And?”
“And we danced…a lot…all night…together.” Molly’s voice quivered, as she remembered things she knew now she would never forget.
“And…?”
Molly drew a shallow breath. She shook her head, mute. She couldn’t tell Lindy the story of that sordid night in the barn.
“This has ruined all our lives, Molly. The least you can do is tell me the truth. Why did he come back? And why are you trying to hate him?”
Molly stared at her sister, surprised by the maturity in that question, the insight. Yes, she wanted to hate Rubal Jarrett. She wanted to in the worst way. And one day, given enough time, she would.
Secret Surrender--Jarrett Family Sagas--Book Four Page 26