Twice Loved

by Wendy Lindstrom

  He smiled, thinking of the many times in the past four weeks he’d startled her just by being in the livery. She’d been used to working alone and still seemed surprised when he made a noise or appeared from around a corner, which was often now that they were actually getting some customers each day. Though Evelyn had been courteous, Radford could sense she was still uncomfortable with him.

  “What’s that for?” he asked, glancing at the material in her lap.

  “I’m sewing. I need something to do that won’t distract Gus, and this forces me to get my mending done.”

  “Does the singing help?”

  Evelyn wrinkled her nose. “It’s awful, but it gets Gus used to my voice. It seems to soothe him.”

  She had a wonderful voice, but was delightfully modest. “Gus seems to be coming around.”

  “Oh, he is,” Evelyn said, her emerald eyes fairly dancing with excitement. “Yesterday, he took an apple right from my hand. Today he’s going outside for a while.”

  When her smile reached her eyes, Radford was stunned by her beauty and had to struggle not to stare. “I don’t think we’ll get anything around Gus’s neck without undoing your progress,” he said, telling himself he needed to start spending his evenings helping Kyle on his house as he’d planned to do until he realized that Rebecca wouldn’t let him leave the house at night.

  “I’m not using anything to get Gus outside. If you want to help, open the gate when you see me leave the barn, but do it slowly so you don’t frighten him.”

  Recognizing a perfect opportunity to put some distance between himself and Evelyn, Radford went outside to finish his chores.

  It was some minutes later when Evelyn placed her stool several feet outside the door. Baffled, Radford laid down the shovel he’d been using to dig up a tree root then moved to the gate to await her signal. To his growing confusion, Evelyn sat down and went on sewing and singing as though sipping tea in a parlor. Several minutes later, Gus tentatively poked his nose out of the open doorway.

  Radford watched in amazement as the horse eventually moved into the sunshine. For every couple of steps the horse took toward her, Evelyn quietly moved the stool that distance away until, after several minutes, she was sitting in the middle of the paddock and Gus had followed her in through the open gate.

  Radford closed it gently behind the stallion and shook his head as he watched the horse wander over to the wheelbarrow full of hay and begin nibbling. Admiration for Evelyn’s ingenuity gave way to more appreciative thoughts and he found himself studying her as she carried the stool to the edge of the paddock, striding with inherent grace despite her baggy clothing.

  There was nothing rusty or halting about Evelyn, nothing overdone or exaggerated. She reminded him of the willows that grew along the pond’s edge, tall, lithe, and unadorned as they swayed with the wind, so unlike the fussy wildflowers that preened and flailed in the slightest breeze.

  She was the exact opposite of Olivia’s bright, affected beauty. Where Rebecca’s mother had been seductive and hot, Evelyn was sleek and cool. Her cheeks were rosed by fresh air and sun, rather than rouged with the powders Olivia had used. Evelyn’s hair resembled midnight mink and Radford remembered how beautiful it looked unbound. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember what he had found so appealing in Olivia’s auburn locks.

  The contrasts between the women were intriguing, but it bothered Radford that he was becoming preoccupied with them. What did it matter that Evelyn exuded a natural beauty that Olivia never possessed? It wasn’t for him to notice. He shouldn’t be thinking about Evelyn at all.

  Turning away to break the path of his thoughts, Radford sighed in relief when he spied Rebecca. “There you are,” he said, watching her walk out the back door of the barn, trailing a stick in the dirt behind her. She stopped and swirled it in the soil Radford had dug up from around the stump. “What are you doing, sprite?”

  She shrugged. “Making pictures.”

  Radford grinned as she moved away then he went back to digging the tree stump. From time to time, he would look for Rebecca, who was wandering nearby, drawing in the dirt or trailing her stick along the side of the barn. As the afternoon wore on, Radford grew hot and impatient with the stubborn stump and turned his attention to hacking it from its dogmatic grip on the earth.

  Evelyn was in the livery brushing her prized Thoroughbred when she heard a loud bang and Rebecca’s scream.

  She flew out the back door, her heart bursting with fear as she saw Radford leap the paddock fence.

  “Dear God,” she whispered, spying Rebecca lying on the ground beside the overturned wheelbarrow. Gus pranced at the other side of the paddock, snorting and pawing the worn grass.

  Evelyn ducked between the rails and ran to Radford, falling to her knees beside Rebecca. “What happened?” she asked, her chest pounding with fear.

  Radford didn’t spare her a glance as he reached for his daughter. He cupped Rebecca’s face in his palms then gasped in relief when her eyes opened. “Thank God,” he whispered.

  Rebecca blinked again then scrambled to her knees, clawing at Radford until she was held tightly in his arms. “That horse k-kicked me,” she said, bursting into tears.

  The breath rushed from Evelyn’s lungs as she glanced at Gus, who was certainly agitated enough to kick anyone. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Radford answered, his voice trembling. He eased Rebecca away and checked her face and body for injuries. “Where did he kick you?”

  Rebecca pointed to the overturned wheelbarrow and mound of hay beside it. “He kicked that and it fell on me,” she wailed.

  Seeing that Rebecca was only frightened and not seriously injured, Evelyn sagged back on her knees, her eyes meeting Radford’s. “What was she doing in the paddock?”

  “I said, I don’t know!” Radford snapped. With shaking hands, he set Rebecca away from him. “What were you doing out here, Rebecca?”

  She hiccupped and pointed to her stick lying a few feet away. “I was gonna t-train him.”

  “What?” Radford asked, his expression baffled.

  Evelyn glanced at the stick in sudden understanding. For the last several days, Rebecca had watched with avid curiosity as Evelyn trained her yearling. Apparently, she was trying to imitate Evelyn’s actions, just as Agatha Brown had warned she would do. “I think Rebecca was using her stick as a riding crop. She must have spooked Gus.”

  Radford’s gaze shot from Evelyn to Rebecca, whose tears were still rolling down her cheeks. “Did you touch that horse?” he asked, pointing to Gus who had backed to the far side of the paddock, his eyes still white with fear.

  Rebecca nodded. “I was gonna train him.”

  Radford’s nostrils flared and his voice came out hard. “I thought I told you to stay away from the horses.”

  “I wanted to train—”

  “I don’t care what you wanted to do! Do you realize that horse could have killed you?” he scolded.

  Rebecca’s eyes widened and she shrank back.

  He gave her a gentle shake to get her attention. “Do you understand that?”

  Rebecca’s chin quivered and her eyes flooded, tears flowing down her cheeks like a river. She nodded in jerky movements.

  “Don’t you ever do that again, young lady!”

  Evelyn clenched her fists. “You’re scaring her, Radford.”

  Radford’s angry gaze swung to Evelyn. “I sure hope so. It might save her life.”

  “Being afraid won’t save her from anything. She needs to be taught what can hurt her.”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “No you’re not. You’re making her fear your actions if she disobeys you. That doesn’t satisfy her curiosity about Gus.”

  “Look where curiosity got her today.” He turned Rebecca toward Evelyn.

  Rebecca’s cheek was brush-burned and her clothes were covered with hay fragments, her tiny interlocked fingers were stained with dirt and tears. Her pathetic sobbing wrenched Eve
lyn’s heart and fired an anger deep within her.

  Burning with indignation for Rebecca, Evelyn glared at Radford. “You have only yourself to blame for being blind. Even I could see the curiosity brimming in Rebecca’s face every time she looked at the horses. You can’t keep her wrapped in cotton, Radford. She’s a healthy little girl, who’s curious about the world she lives in.”

  His lip curled. “She’s a little girl who needs her father to protect her.”

  Radford’s voice was cold, condescending. Pride kept Evelyn’s gaze pinned to his. They stared at each other in frigid silence. Rebecca’s soft crying and Gus’s agitated pawing mingled with the distant sounds of the lumber mill.

  Was he so wrong to want to protect his daughter? Radford wondered. Isn’t that what a father was supposed to do?

  Evelyn stood and brushed the dirt off her knees. “You protect her then, Radford, but don’t ask me to ignore Rebecca when I know I can help her. She deserves to be a carefree little girl. And she needs a doll!”

  “She had one. She gave it to her nanny’s baby when they moved away.”

  Radford saw the momentary flicker of surprise in Evelyn’s eyes before they became cool again. “Do you think that maybe she regrets giving away her baby doll?”

  “I bought her one to replace it, but she pushed it under her bed and never played with it.” Radford sighed and shoved his hair back with a shaky hand. “I think it’s best if you leave this alone, Evelyn. You don’t understand what Rebecca’s been through.”

  Her shoulders stiffened. “Maybe not, but I understand little girls who are frightened and alone and just want someone to love.”

  “Rebecca doesn’t want a doll!”

  “Fine!” Evelyn shouted. “But she needs to feel safe in the world around her, not just on her blanket or with her hand tucked in yours. She was trying to venture out on her own today and got hurt because she isn’t prepared. Until you recognize that, you’re imprisoning her and cheating her out of her childhood.”

  Radford was not going to feel guilty for caring enough to protect his child. He’d failed to do that once and Rebecca had suffered because of it. “I’m trying to see that she survives her childhood, Evelyn.”

  Her head jerked up, eyes snapping. “Animals survive, Radford. People live. Little girls laugh and explore!”

  Radford’s teeth clenched as he caught Rebecca in his arms and stood up. “What makes you an authority?”

  Evelyn’s face drained of color and her lips thinned. “Experience,” she said quietly. “Being motherless.”

  Radford didn’t have the breath to stop Evelyn when she strode away. Instead, he cupped the back of Rebecca’s head and pulled her to his shoulder. She buried her face and shuddered. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He stroked her back. “Daddy’s sorry.”

  “I was gonna train that h-horse,” Rebecca cried into Radford’s neck.

  “I know, sprite.”

  “I was gonna give him an apple, too.”

  Radford’s gaze swept the paddock. Beside the wheelbarrow lay Rebecca’s withered, half-eaten apple. She must have carried it in her pocket since lunch, saving it for Gus. She’d seen Evelyn feed them to the horses. She’d seen Evelyn guide the yearling with her riding crop. Who knew what other potentially dangerous things she’d seen Evelyn do.

  Rebecca lifted her head and scrubbed her eyes with grubby fists. She blinked and looked at him. “Don’t be mad no more, Daddy.”

  “I’m not. I was just scared.”

  “Is that how come you yelled at me?”

  “Yeah,” he said, his throat thick with regret. Guilt swept through him. He had never yelled at Rebecca. Never.

  Rebecca was all he had, the only good thing left in his life, his only reason for facing each day. Maybe Evelyn was right. Maybe he was blind. Or maybe he was just selfish.

  Without Rebecca, he had nothing. But what did she have? What was Rebecca getting from him?

  Chapter Eight

  When her father stumped into the kitchen the next morning, Evelyn stood up and poured his coffee. “Do you think Radford will be going back to the mill soon?”

  He kissed her cheek and took the thick mug she offered. “He’ll go back when he feels he can.”

  “It’s been four weeks already.”

  He paused, lips on the rim of his cup, eyebrow lifted. Slowly, he lowered the mug. “It may be four more.”

  “Why?” Her outburst made him grimace, but he settled himself at the kitchen table without comment. Evelyn knelt beside his chair and took his hand. “Papa, I don’t want him here. Kyle can help me. Or he can hire another man.”

  “What difference does it make who’s helpin’ us out?”

  The difference was that Radford was turning her life upside down. One minute she wanted to hit him for being blind to Rebecca’s needs, the next, Evelyn was melting over his obvious love and tender affection for his daughter. Though they had spoken little since their argument yesterday, Evelyn had forgiven Radford’s comments, knowing he’d been upset. Still, his presence in her livery scattered her senses and drew her attention to things she didn’t want to notice. He directed her eyes like the wind turning a sail. Before she knew it, she’d be examining his handsome face and wondering if he kissed like Kyle. She had to get him out of her house!

  “I think Radford is unhappy running the livery,” she said, trying one last selfish attempt to sway her father.

  “‘Course he is. He wants to be at that mill with his brothers where he belongs.”

  “Then why doesn’t he go? Why doesn’t he just challenge Kyle and get it over with?”

  “Because now ain’t the time and he knows it.” He reached out and patted Evelyn’s cheek. “You’re worrying about nothing.”

  “Nothing?” Evelyn’s heart sank along with her hopes. “Papa, I love walking into that livery in the morning, feeling I belong there, pouring my heart into each job I do because you taught me to. Those horses are special to me. I love the musty smell of that old barn and the way the sun makes the hay gold in the morning and bronze in the evening. When I’m out there, I feel you working beside me. Sometimes when Radford uses the forge, I hear his hammers ringing and it’s like you’re right there, but it’s not the same anymore.” Evelyn swallowed to clear the emotional thickness in her throat. “That’s my world, Papa. Our world. And it means a great deal more than nothing.”

  He ran his palm over her hair and sighed. “I asked you to trust me, but maybe I asked too much. That livery belongs to you and Kyle just as surely as the sawmill belongs to Radford. Ain’t nothing gonna change that, pixie.”

  “I wasn’t worried about Radford taking over,” she said, grasping her father’s trembling fingers. “It’s just that the livery feels different with him there. I don’t feel comfortable like I used to with you working beside me, and I don’t want to lose that.”

  “Maybe you need to. You haven’t let yourself care about anything else in years. You need to go out and visit friends once in a while. Have Kyle take you to a dance some Saturday night.”

  She didn’t dance. She didn’t have any friends other than Amelia and Agatha. She had the livery and her father. And feelings for Radford she didn’t understand.

  “I don’t care about those things, Papa. I’m happy here.” She kissed her father’s frail hand. “If Radford isn’t back at the mill by the end of summer, will you ask him to leave?”

  The life seemed to drain from her father’s eyes and he pushed his coffee cup away with a sigh. “You may as well cut out my heart. I love that boy. He’s been through hell most people couldn’t even imagine. If the livery is that important to you then I wish I’d never owned it. Because now it owns you.”

  Evelyn plunked the saddle and bridle on the fence wishing she’d never approached her father about getting Radford out of the livery. It had crushed him to think he may have to choose between herself and Radford. She’d been unfair to her father, and to Radford. She shouldn’t have condemned him for wanting to protect
Rebecca. He was a good father, shortsighted maybe, but Evelyn should have realized it was his fear that made him so harsh with Rebecca, and held her temper in check.

  Sighing, Evelyn climbed between the rails and gave a short, shrill whistle for the bay-colored, snip-nosed yearling. He trotted to her on spindly legs and she lifted her palm to give him a lump of sugar. It was then that Evelyn saw Rebecca near the fence, clutching her yellow blanket, watching.

  “Daddy’s in the barn with a man,” Rebecca said shyly.

  Knowing he was with a customer, Evelyn crossed the paddock, wondering if Radford knew his daughter was outside. Rebecca’s gaze followed the colt as he picked at tufts of grass along the fence, and Evelyn realized she had an opportunity to lessen Rebecca’s fear of horses. “Would you like to pet Jake?”

  Rebecca eyed the colt, but she didn’t move.

  Evelyn squatted beside Jake and waited for Rebecca to decide, hoping the incident with Gus wouldn’t give her a lasting fear of horses. The child’s steps were hesitant, but to Evelyn’s delight, she came. Rebecca took her finger from her mouth and tentatively touched Jake’s forelock. He lifted his head and knocked her hand away, causing her to step back.

  “That’s his way of playing.” Evelyn held her hand flat with palm facing upward. “Hold your hand like this and let him smell you so he knows who you are. Then you can give him a treat.”

  When Rebecca raised her hand, the yearling sniffed it then snorted in her palm. She gasped and jumped back, clasping her hand to her stomach.

  Evelyn chuckled and held out a lump of sugar. “Want to feed him a treat this time?”

  Rebecca’s nod was hesitant, but she accepted the treat and held it out like Evelyn had shown her. Jake sniffed it, wiggled his whiskered lips over the lump then pulled it into his mouth. Rebecca squeaked and scrubbed her hand against her belly as a breathless giggle escaped her.

  It was the first time Evelyn had ever heard Rebecca laugh. The sound was so innocent, so beautiful, it made her eyes sting. Oh, Radford, why aren’t you here to see this?