Funny, she didn’t know what to call him by, either. So she didn’t. “Folks around here call me Hattie.”
“Then if I may, Miss Hattie.” He pulled out her chair and waited on her to sit.
She hesitated. As far as she was concerned, he could wait on her forever, because she’d waited on him almost thirty years. And that was three decades too long. Now, hoping to get things over as quickly as possible, she accommodated him by dropping into the proffered chair.
He sat down slowly and looked deeply at her. “You’re a beautiful woman, Miss Hattie. A very beautiful woman. Forgive me, but for some reason, I envisioned a little girl.” He cleared his throat and took a sip of lemonade. “If I may say, I didn’t anticipate things between us would be this awkward.”
“How on earth did you expect things between us to be?” she snapped back.
“I didn’t expect you to even be,” he said. “That is, until two weeks ago.”
How could he not suspect? “My ma ran away while she was still your slave, didn’t she?” He humbly nodded. “Yes.”
“After you and she…?”
His blushed deepened. “I can only imagine that just one hour of our love would produce something as beautiful as you.”
“Beautiful?” Hattie’s face heated with resentment. “Do you know how ugly it was for me growing up without a father? What it was like to be afraid every night that outlaws would come in and hurt us? What it was like to be six years old with blisters from working so hard and watching my ma work even harder? What it was like to wear rags and go hungry and always feel like I was never going to get warm?” Her eyes burned. “Do you know what it was like to…” She covered her mouth, unwilling or unable to say the rest—hate myself because my pa didn’t give a fig about me? She tried to swallow her anguish, but it spewed out. “How could you not know about me?”
His eyes glistened. Why did he have to look at her so tenderly? “I beg your forgiveness. Can you pardon a man for being so blind?”
Being a Christian obligated her to forgive him, but he could squirm a bit more for her pardon. “You said something happened two weeks ago. What made you come looking for me now?”
“Your mother’s sister paid me a visit.”
“You mean my Aunt Henrietta?”
“I do.”
Hattie covered her mouth again, this time out of joy. Aunt Henrietta was the only relative Hattie’s mother had told her about, though she’d never met her.
Hattie shot to her feet. “Is she in Georgia? Is my mother with her?” Was she going to see her mother again and meet her aunt?
“Henrietta left Georgia soon after the emancipation,” he said, “and settled in Iowa where she found work as a cleaning lady in an asylum.”
Hattie shrugged off the remote possibility that it could be the same asylum Nate had been in. “Does she know where my mother is?”
“Yes, she does. In a sense.”
That was a strange answer. “What kind of sense?”
He hesitated. “She told me that your mother had passed on.”
Hattie’s dancing heart came to a standstill.
“You have my sincerest condolences.” He reached to touch her hand on the table, but she pulled it away.
“I know this is hard on you,” he said. “It was hard on me as well when I found out. It still is.” He glanced around the room at the faded red drapes and plain wooden walls. A glance from his gleaming eyes indicated “hard” included learning about her. “I understand she’d been sickly for several years.” He cleared his throat and took another sip.
“And you come looking for me to tell me that?” Hattie asked flatly.
“Yes. I thought you should know. But I also wanted to meet you after learning about you from your aunt.”
“Why couldn’t you just leave it to my aunt to tell me?”
He offered her an injured look. “You think mighty low of me.”
Yes, she did, and she tried to drive that point through to him with a hard glare, which he met with soft eyes.
“I truly wish I could establish a better rapport with you,” he said. “We are father and daughter.”
No they weren’t. “You’re a stranger.”
“No, Miss Hattie, I’m a man you resent because you’ve never met me. There’s a difference.” He stared into his glass of foggy lemonade. “I wish I could go back and change it all for you and your dear mother.”
Wishing didn’t change anything. But there was something Hattie needed to know. “How much did you love her?”
His voice trembled. “Make no mistake; I have loved no woman as much as I loved her. I never married, because I knew I would find happiness with none other than her.”
“Then why didn’t you marry her?”
“You don’t understand. We had to hide our love. This was Georgia.”
“You could have come to Ramsden. My mother did. Folks here don’t care what color you are.”
“If I had left,” he said, “I would have forfeited my inheritance.”
Is that what had kept them all unhappy? Money?
She walked away from the table and crossed her arms. Lord, he’s not making it easy for me to forgive him. In fact, she wanted to give him a good tongue lashing but held her temper. “If you’ve said your piece, I’d like you to leave now.”
“I understand.” As he came to his feet, he pulled an envelope from his inner pocket and placed it on the table. “I can’t change your past, but I can aspire to help your future.”
Hattie looked at the thick envelope. “Are you trying to buy my forgiveness?”
“I’m a Christian man, Miss Hattie. My forgiveness has already been purchased.” And with that, he left.
25
Nate banged on the door of what might have been a charming two-story house with a white picket fence had it not been for the man who lived there. “Come out, Zachariah.” He banged again.
The door flew open, and Zachariah appeared, rifle in hand, a man guarding his family. If there was anyone else in the house, Nate didn’t see them nor did he care. His senses had tunneled in on one thing. All he could see, hear, smell, and even taste was the bitterness in front of him in the form of a man with a name he hated so much, he couldn’t spit it out a second time.
“What do you want here, Nate?”
Revenge, that’s what he wanted. His hands shook, itching for it. His chest tightened, craving it.
“You told Hattie I was in the asylum. You knew because Marcus told you. He didn’t even tell his own wife, but he told his hired hand. You took my father from me, you good-for-nothing-”
“I’m warning you.” Zachariah raised the rifle. “Get off my property.”
But Nate’s shoes held fast. “Everyone here thinks you’re a sheriff, but behind that badge you’re a nothing. And a nothing doesn’t tell a Powell what to do.”
A small voice came from inside the house. “Why is he yelling at Daddy?”
“Hush, Molly,” Lillian said.
Nate barely heard the voices of Zachariah’s wife and daughter as he lost his senses and lunged at a man a head taller and forty pounds heavier. The next moment, Nate was on the ground with his arms locked behind his back. He could barely breathe under Zachariah’s weight.
“You come to my house, you frighten my family,” Zachariah said. “That does it. I’ve had it with you, Nate.”
~*~
Evening had stolen the ray of sunlight that poured from the window and onto the worn table where Hattie had been sitting a long time, chin in hand, looking down at the envelope Jonathan Garrison Parker had left behind. Its thickness, along with his words “I can’t change your past, but I can aspire to help your future,” were a dead giveaway there was money inside. How much didn’t matter, because no amount of money could ever rebuild a person’s past.
But then again, his words had been mighty humbling. “I’m a Christian man, Miss Hattie. My forgiveness has already been purchased.”
“I get the point, Lor
d,” she said.
Another knock at the door, and Hattie perked. Nate had been gone a long time. She peeked out the window, and when she saw that it was Zachariah, she knew where Nate had been. Thank God Zachariah was all right. Was his family all right as well?
“Howdy, Hattie.” The flatness in his voice when she opened the door told her that everybody was fine but that Zachariah was steaming mad.
“This isn’t a social call, is it?” she said.
“No, it ain’t. I’m here on business.”
Nate, what did you do? “And what business would that be?” As if she had to ask.
“I’ve got Nate locked up in the jailhouse, I’m putting him on tomorrow’s stagecoach, and I don’t want you anywhere near him in the meantime.”
The blood left her face. “You can’t do that, Zachariah.”
“I can, and I did.” He raised his voice, which meant he’d reached his wit’s end. “He came to my house and scared my family half to death. So, look here, Hattie. I’m the sheriff of this here town, and I aim to protect the people in it, and that includes my family as well as you. You’ve been letting him court you and encouraging him to stick around. I want him gone.”
If only she hadn’t told Nate she knew about the asylum. “Are you telling me I can’t even visit him in jail?”
“I don’t want you within a mile of him. I told you, he’s not right in the head.”
“That’s because he lost his sister,” she pleaded.
“I loved Sally, too. But I can’t afford the luxury of concerning myself with the why behind Nate’s conduct, because I have to concern myself with the fact that he’s a dangerous man and that I can’t have him around you or this town any longer.”
Hattie crossed her arms. Zachariah wasn’t going to tell her what to do when her heart said otherwise. “You have no right to run my life, Zachariah. You’re not my boss.” She looked Heavenward. “He is.”
“And He put me in charge of Ramsden. So, as long as you live in Ramsden, I have every right to do whatever it takes to run this town the best I see fit.” He gave her a look as if falling in love made a person stupid. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’d like to enjoy what’s left of my Sunday.”
He left, leaving her standing in the middle of the kitchen, stumped. Picking up the envelope of money her pa had left behind, she recalled what her mother had said about being squeezed out of a man’s love.
“You can love a man until your heart is so full of him that it feels like it’s going to burst. You can even give him everything a woman can give a man, but if he’s got something else in his heart, eventually it’s going to shove you right out.”
She tossed the envelope aside and threw her shawl over her shoulders. She had to talk to Nate and it was easier to grow a foot taller than to change Zachariah’s mind. But Clayton, the part-time deputy, was a pushover. And fortunately Zachariah had returned her horse, which Clayton had borrowed.
Sure enough, Clayton was sitting behind the sheriff’s desk. And sure enough, all it took to get Clayton to stand outside the door so she could talk to Nate privately was a pout and a voice full of honey.
But she wasn’t so sweet to Nate when he brought his face to the bars. Instead of a kiss, she gave him a tongue-lashing. “Going to a man’s home and scaring his family was a foolish thing to do, Nate.”
It was the first time she’d ever seen him this unkempt with his coat torn, his shirt soiled, and his hair messed. He pushed away from the bars and paced like a restless coyote in his cell. “I did it because he told you where I’d been. He had no right to tell you.”
“Tell me what? What I should have figured out for myself a long time ago? Who took care of you while you were stuck in your melancholy? Who stood by your bedside?”
He stopped pacing, and his eyes softened. “You did, Hattie. So how could you possibly think I was with another woman all that time?”
“Because when you’d gotten engaged to Lillian, you hurt me badly.”
“I never loved her. It’s always been you, Hattie. You’re the only woman who’s ever been in my heart.”
“Yes.” She looked deeply into his eyes as she finally understood what had always come between them. “The only woman.”
He frowned at her. “You say that with doubt.”
“No. I said it with certainty.” Although it wasn’t a woman, there was someone else in Nate’s heart.
“You know my heart belongs to you, so what’s the problem? Come with me on tomorrow’s stagecoach. That two-bit sheriff can force me to leave Ramsden, but he can’t force you to stay.”
“I’m not leaving Ramsden, Nate.”
“What?” He walked up to the bars that stood between them. “You know I can’t stay here.”
“Look Nate. I know how much Sally meant to you, but you forget she also meant a lot to Zachariah. He didn’t kill her. You didn’t kill her. Sally’s headstrong nature killed her.”
He pushed away from the bars. “Don’t go there with me, Hattie.”
“If I can’t ‘go there’ with you, how could you expect me to ‘go’ with you to Massachusetts?”
He stressed each word, “You don’t know the whole story between Zachariah and me.”
“Then don’t you think it’s about time you tell me everything?”
“Don’t you think it’s about time you trust me?”
“Trust you?” She snorted. “That’s exactly what our problem is. You downright shattered my trust in you a long time ago, and moving to Massachusetts won’t fix it. You want me to go to a place I’ve never been, packed with people I’ve never met who may not accept me, and that leaves me depending solely on you.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Did you hear a word I said, Nate?”
“You want trust? I’ll give you every penny I have.”
She threw her hands up. “Why does everybody think my hurts can be fixed with money? Dollar bills are just pieces of paper that a good gust of wind can blow away. I need something with substance. I need to trust you again.”
“Then trust me again. I know I was wrong. I admit I was wrong. I regret it. I’m sorry. What more do you want from me?”
“I want you to fix what broke my trust in you in the first place. I want you to make amends with Zachariah, because that’s what’s keeping me from having everything I love.” She pleaded, “You two were friends once−”
“Are you blind?” He threw his hands up. “Look where I am. He put me in jail, Hattie.”
She heated at his sarcasm. “No, Nate, I am not blind. Not in the least. And seeing you’re behind bars makes me speculate you just might be in jail because the sheriff put you there for good reason.”
He huffed repentantly. “I didn’t mean to mock you. But my dealings with that hired hand have nothing to do with you.”
She stared at him. He couldn’t be any more wrong. “Your hatred toward Zachariah has everything to do with me.
“And how exactly is that?”
“Your hatred toward Zachariah is keeping you from loving me the way I need you to.” She crossed her hands over her chest, yearning for him to understand. “I need you to love me with a whole heart.”
“But I do love you. With all my heart.”
“No, you don’t. Can’t you see? You weren’t in love with Lillian, but you were still going to marry her because of your hatred toward Zachariah. Zachariah’s in your heart, Nate, and your hatred toward him is stronger than your love is for me, and it’s shoving me clear out. There’s not enough room inside of you for me and all that hatred you have for him. I need you to love me more than you hate Zachariah.”
“I do love you more than I hate him.”
“Then prove it. Ask Zachariah to forgive you.”
“Forgive me! For what?”
“For blaming him for Sally’s death. For what you did to Lillian. I know it was you who set that fire. You’ve got to ask his forgiveness for all the wrongs you’ve done to him, because you’ve done hi
m plenty.”
His gaze hardened on her. “You’re asking too much of me.”
“Too much of you?” Her hands fell limp to her sides. “What about me, Nate?”
“It’s simple.” He whispered, “Come with me to Massachusetts. It’s the only way we can be together.”
Tears welled in her eyes. Her mother had been right all along about Nate having a divided heart. Hattie had always imagined love of money as the potential adversary. But it was hatred.
His hatred for Zachariah was more powerful than his love for her.
“No,” she said at last. “You’re asking too much of me. If you can’t love me with a whole heart, then I can’t give you my all, either.” She choked. “Good-bye Nate.”
26
“Hattie.” Nate clutched the bars of his cell. “Don’t go.” He tried to shake them loose so he could get out and chase after her, but they were as immovable as she was deaf to his plea. “Hattie, come back. Hattie.”
Just as she opened the door to leave, Zachariah shot in. He stopped short at the sight of her and cast a scowl at Nate. “If this weren’t an emergency, Hattie…”
Clayton stood in the open doorway. “What’s wrong?”
“We got big trouble,” Zachariah said. “Someone came by my house and left me this.”
Clayton’s eyes skimmed the note Zachariah handed him. “This isn’t good. Who left it?”
“I got no idea. There was a knock at my door, and in the few seconds it took for me to answer, all I saw was the rider’s dust.”
Hattie moved to Zachariah’s side. “What does the note say?”
Zachariah answered, “Krugar Gang’s on their way here, and whoever left this note anticipates they’ll be here tomorrow around noon.”
“What do you think they want?” Clayton asked.
“Probably coming for their Reverend.” Nate smirked, knowing his comment wouldn’t be appreciated.
“That’s enough out of you, Nate,” Zachariah said. Then he answered Clayton, “They’ll likely want to rob the bank.”
“Got a plan?” Clayton asked.
“Not yet. But I reckon we’ll be needing as many men as we can get,” Zachariah said.
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