The Thorn Healer

by Pepper D. Basham

  “Why did you leave Germany?”

  Not the introductory question he’d expected. He braided his fingers together behind his back. “Do you mean to say I do not look the very model of a sailor?”

  Her brow tipped again, teasing him with the lighter side of her personality. The side he’d seen in the letters and glimpsed in her conversations with her grandparents. “I’m certain you could do the part, but you don’t strike me as the sort. Craftsman? Caretaker, perhaps? But not the sailor or soldier.”

  “Neither was I a staunch businessman, at which my father was most acutely disappointed.” He shook his head, a painful chuckle escaping. “I forget I know you better than you know me. I’ve had months to learn of you. I am still a stranger to you, and an unwelcome one at that.”

  Her pace slowed, her head bent thoughtfully in his direction. “Then I suppose the only way to bridge the gap of my river-wide suspicions...” She sighed as if she released some internal grip of defiance. “Is to get to know you now.”

  He attempted to rein in his smile, to keep the hope shielded for a little longer, but he utterly failed to contain the surge of joy. His attempt to cling to patience faltered as every small victory boosted hope.

  Hope in a faithful romance from a lady of conviction.

  He knew rejection, the icy sting of duplicity, and the cutting edge of betrayal. Here stood a woman of authenticity, the clarion call of a loyal heart, even to her own detriment. He’d prayed to find a woman of such steadfast persuasion, even if now, her misguided convictions kept her at a distance.

  He drew in a deep breath of patience, the one constant in his life of change and misfortune, and shoved his hands in his pockets as they walked. “I’m afraid I did not have the luxury of a kind father. My elder brother fit the mold my father wished of his son. He was not an enthusiast of compassion.”

  She looked over at him, her gaze fixed on his—searching for clarity? Sincerity?

  “And what did he admire?”

  “Work first.” He grimaced, attempting to imitate the furious disposition of his father. “Money second. And somewhere beneath many other things, came family and faith, unless one served a purpose he could... um... exploit.”

  “And I gather you didn’t quite meet his convoluted expectations?”

  August’s smile fell as he stared up beyond the trees into the waning afternoon sky. “No, I was quite the failure. First, in business and then in marriage.”

  Jess stopped altogether and faced him. “You’re married?”

  His laughter erupted before he could catch it. “You are very quick to make assumptions, Miss Ross. First, I am a murderer, then I am seducing a widow, and now I am married before I can even finish my tale?”

  She sighed, the attractive rose color filling in her cheeks again as she resumed their walk. “You’re right. I’ll reserve my assumptions until after you finish your tale.”

  “At least then, your misguided assumptions will be flavored with some truth, yes?”

  He caught the tempered smile on her profile but otherwise, she kept quiet, so he continued.

  “I was to be married to a woman of my father’s choosing. Wealthy and prestigious. In truth, I cared for her, but she broke the engagement to marry a man with more money than I. My father blamed me for failing to keep her, but quickly found another woman to be my bride. However, this one had the personality of a fish.”

  She grinned up at him, full and unhindered, and his whole world slowed to take in the outstanding vision. “And not even her money would sway your heart?”

  “I suppose I’m old-fashioned to long for camaraderie and love, yes?” He gave a playful one-shoulder shrug and her smile spread a little wider. “One of my many failings, I assure you, and certainly one which incurred my father’s wrath. Despite my ailing mother’s plea, he disinherited me and sent me away.” The remembrance of his mother, standing at the door, weak and tear-stained as she watched him leave, blocked up his throat and strained his air.

  “And you found yourself swept out to sea?” Her comment, paired with a guarded look of compassion, added a balm of levity into the depths of his despair.

  “Lost would have been a more accurate description.” He nodded as the path turned the bend and the farmhouse came into view. “Until I found myself in this quiet part of the world and in the unexpected care of your grandparents.”

  Their pace slowed again, the badminton net a sign of the end to their more serious conversation. “I have found more freedom and acceptance here in this foreign place than I’ve ever known. To my father, I was not hard enough... too gentle, too kind. To my fiancée, I was not... what would you say, charming enough for her social demands?

  He studied her to see if his word choice proved correct.

  “I’m not sure that’s the right word, but I get your meaning.”

  He gestured toward the farm, the woods, and the welcoming mountains framing them. “I prefer a quiet life. These mountains, these people, have become my own.”

  She stopped by the net, her hair a halo of spun gold in the sunlight. “So, if you could be free, you’d stay here?”

  He drew his stare from the beauty of her hair and back to her eyes. “If I could, yes. If I had the freedom to walk up the trail and keep walking and not return.” He gestured toward the forest. “Start over. August Reinhold could disappear and I would become someone else. But this I could not do. I would spend my days as a hunted man, wondering if someone would discover the truth that I lied and shamed my kinsman. No, this would be wrong.”

  “There’s no other way for you to be free?”

  “Besides an end to this war? No, nothing but death, and I am not keen to experience that anytime soon, though it would be a less shameful freedom than running away.”

  Her smile emerged with a challenging glint in her eyes. “Unless, of course, it’s a death to your pride?”

  He tipped his head closer, examining the layers of evergreen and emerald intermingled in the swirls of her eyes. “I admire your confidence, but I have no plans of being a casualty to your hands, Miss Ross.”

  “We’ll just have to see about that, Mr. Reinhold.”

  ***

  The man was positively infuriating. Two matches of badminton, and he’d pummeled her without breaking a sweat. She found very little consolation in the fact he’d dirtied his otherwise pristine appearance with a good fall to the ground, but it failed to dampen his good-natured smile.

  Oh, that smile! She growled. Most likely, he told her the story about his fiancée to soften her fight because his history paired with his boyish grin became her ultimate undoing. Her leg slowed her, of course, and being out of practice didn’t help, but she’d blame the smile.

  She wanted to nurse the distrust for him. Every scar left behind from Snyder fueled the need, but August contradicted every rationale or even irrational argument she conjured. He oozed with a unique charm, one Jessica found hard to counter. Not like Jasper, with his playboy grin and silver tongue. She never felt the draw to speak authentically or deeply with him, only to indulge a shallow flirtation with a slight hint of danger—but August? He wore tenderness and gentleness in his expression, mining beneath her prejudice to unearth a buried need inside. How had he slipped beneath her defenses so effortlessly? It terrified her.

  “Mr. August is very good at badminton,” Jude said, piling another spoonful of potatoes onto his plate, the dictionary underneath his bottom giving him enough of a lift to reach the food bowls on his own.

  Jess pulled her thoughts away from the afternoon events back to supper. The beef dried out in her mouth but she smiled at the little boy. “Yes, very good.”

  Her grandfather’s moustache twitched with the effort to tame his smile. Jessica shot him a glare. His moustache twitched again.

  “I think you’ll do much better after you have more practice, Miss Jesse.”

  Jessica swallowed down the mountain-sized lump of pride in her throat and held her grin intact, despite her grandfa
ther’s sudden choking attack... which sounded suspiciously like laughter.

  “She used to best every boy in town.” Her grandmother sent her a wink as she passed a bowl of beans. “Even her father, at times.”

  Father! Jessica pushed up from the table. “I forgot! Father sent a letter yesterday and I completely forgot about it. How could I have forgotten?”

  “You’ve been busy lately, Jessica, not to mention having a hard time getting a full night’s sleep. Motherhood has a way of causing women to become a bit more forgetful than usual.” Her grandfather nodded, and a forkful of potatoes hung in mid-air on its way to his mouth.

  “But don’t worry, your mind will come back to you for a few years before old age begins to weedle it away all over again,” her grandmother added with a chuckle and then waved her spoon in the air. “Go on. Git the letter so we can have some news from across the Pond.”

  Jessica rushed up the stairs as fast as her limp would take her and slowed before entering her room. A tiny grunt from the corner of the room alerted her to Faith’s sleep status. Awake for an hour, perhaps, and then she’d sleep a good two hours before Jessica would wake her for her last daytime feeding before, she hoped, a longer stretch of sleep for the night.

  She’d found her fist, sucking on it hard enough to make a smacking noise. Jessica grinned down at the little face. “Are you hungry, sweet one?”

  The sucking paused a moment, her round, blue eyes looking up to find Jessica’s face, and then she resumed with more vigor.

  Jess took the little bundle into her arms without a hitch, cradling the tiny head in the crook of her elbow. “Hungry already? I don’t think it’s been a full two hours yet.”

  The sucking stopped again and tenderness soaked through Jess’ chest like tepid rain. Faith knew the sound of her voice? Jess’ eyes burned, stinging with emotions on the brink all of the time. Whether from her lack of sleep or the bubbling concoction of untied wounds, or an unhealthy combination of the two, her heart teetered as precarious as the tears on her lashes.

  She scooped the letter from her desk and placed a kiss on the tiny bald head before collecting her wayward emotions and heading down the stairs.

  “Well, I see you found more than the letter to entertain us.” Grandpa stood before Granny and stepped close to Jess, peering down at the baby. “She’s looking healthy.”

  “And hungry,” Jess added, moving to the stove to start warming a bottle.

  “She’s sure hungry a lot.” Jude took another bite of fried chicken. “To be so little, she’s got a heap of an appetite.”

  “Well, she’s got a lot of growin’ to do to catch up with her big brother,” Granny said, walking to the stove and taking over. “Go on and read that letter. I’ll get this goin’.”

  Jess slid back into her chair at the table, adjusted her hold on Faith, and turned over the envelope to open it. The Cavanaugh seal, a lion holding a sword, stamped the back of the envelope with its expensive putty. Ednesbury Court, the estate and title her father had inherited as the only living biological heir to the Cavanaughs. He’d been cast out of the family when he’d chosen to marry Jess’ mother, a poor mountain woman with a vibrant imagination and a generous heart. He’d called it love at first sight and had never looked back. But by some miracle of time and circumstance, all of the other heirs to the Cavanaugh legacy died without producing a male heir—all except her father.

  He’d stepped into the role with the same ingenuity and generosity as he’d always shown, building up the village of Ednesbury from what the previous generation had torn apart. She smiled as she broke the seal and removed the high quality paper. Her brother, David, would make an excellent successor—he and his wife, Catherine.

  Jess lost complete control of her smile at the thought of her strong-willed and sharp-tongued sister-in-law. Oh, what would Catherine think of Hot Springs? And of Jessica’s instant motherhood?

  “Well, what does it say?” Her grandfather’s words knocked her from her musings.

  She unfolded the paper and frowned at the brevity of the note.

  My dearest daughter,

  You have only been away for a few weeks and already I miss you too much to keep the distance.

  Jess looked up at her granny and then quickly back to the words.

  It’s been much too long since I’ve traveled to Hot Springs and I feel the estate is now established enough under my care to survive without my immediate supervision for a short while. My man, James, is quite capable as steward, and I feel the freedom to leave all manner of concerns to him for a few weeks so that I can come and see you. If it is too much trouble for your grandparents, I will be happy to board at Lance’s, should it still be there, or the inn, but at any rate, I am coming.

  And I do not come alone.

  The words barely formed on Jess lips before she sped to the end of the note.

  David, Catherine, and little Addie will accompany me. A holiday from hospital work will do them all a great day of good, so I have forced their hands. And, as you know Catherine, it was no small feat to convince her to leave.

  We embark on June 8 and should arrive in Hot Springs by the 15th. I am eager to see those mountains, but most of all, I am hungry to see you, my dear.

  Affectionately,

  Your father

  Complete silence greeted the end of her letter. Granny looked to Grandpa, then they both turned to Jessica. Jude continued to shovel potatoes into his mouth, eating like the hungry child he must have been once, and Faith’s grunts took a downward turn toward a whimper.

  Granny brought the bottle and shrugged. “Well, they’re goin’ to stay here, of course.”

  “Is there room?”

  “‘Course there’s room,” Grandpa added. “Jude can bunk up with you on the rollaway bed so Alexander can take his room. And David, Catherine, and the baby can sleep in the front room.”

  “It shouldn’t take too much work to clear out the space for them.” Granny nodded with more sureness. “They’re family—and they should stay with family if they can.”

  Jess tightened her smile, not quite feeling her grandparents’ confidence. Her father, the earl, with her brother and his fashion-forward wife, in the small Appalachian town of Hot Springs that hosted a German internment camp? Hot Springs wasn’t prepared for the intriguing beauty and charismatic charm of her sister-in-law. And what would August think?

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jude rode alongside Jessica down the street to the Mercantile in Grandpa’s Model T. Grandpa rarely used the auto car, since it couldn’t reach patients back in the mountains. Horse and buggy still worked for those visits, and sometimes, for the steeper hollows, only old-fashioned walking would do.

  Jude sat wide-eyed, holding to the front of the car with both hands, and bubbled with non-stop questions. What made the car go forward? Why were there three pedals?

  Though both a part of the same culture, their lives had been so different. He’d grown up in the mountains, barely coming into town more than once a month to get supplies, living off whatever they found in the forest, keeping one cow and pig, which now resided at her grandparents’. She’d been raised a mile from town, next door to her grandparents, couched in an environment of hard work, plenty, and love.

  With some extra change in her pocket, Jess barely contained the little-girl excitement at letting Jude pick out his own candy from Kimp’s. As they walked across the street toward the store, Jess caught sight of Jasper Little’s familiar profile. Straw hat at a fashionable tilt, he leaned against the brick wall of the Hardware Store in conversation with another man. Who was it? Casper Davis?

  She ought to warn Jasper against developing friendships with the any unsavory sorts in Hot Springs. There were few people in Hot Springs who carried a sour expression, and worse, sour intentions. Casper Davis and his family were the minority in a town of five hundred, but a minority worth their own warning.

  She ushered Jude through the door of Kimp’s and into a rush of commotion.
A woman wailed from the back of the room where a group of four huddled close. The bell above the door chimed Jess and Jude’s entry, and Kimp looked their way from his kneeled position on the floor. His eyes widened and he stood, marching toward them, his face red.

  “Thank God you showed up, Miss Ross.”

  Jess squeezed Jude’s hand and met Kimp halfway across the room, her instincts on alert. “What is it, Mr. Kimper?”

  “Ryan, Mrs. Lester’s boy, just had a fall.”

  “I couldn’t hold him.” A woman in the back murmured against a little boy’s hair as she cradled him against her. His pain-filled screams rivaled her voice. “He wiggled right out of my arms.”

  “Face first on the hard wood floors.”

  Jess pushed past the man and into the small group, dropping Jude’s hand to get a closer view. The boy, no more than two, lay limp against his mother’s chest. Amy, Kimp’s niece, stood. “I checked him as soon as it happened. The bulge on his head popped out instead of sunk in, which is ‘spose to be a better sign from what I’ve read. Is that right?”

  Jess nodded to the girl, impressed with her intelligent calm and awareness. “Most of the time. Did he lose consciousness at all?”

  “No,” came Amy’s quick reply. “From what I can tell, he kind of got stunned for a second and then started off a wailin’. I got some icings right away to reduce swelling for the bulge on his head.”

  “Excellent thinking, Amy.”

  The girl’s smile beamed, appreciative. Jess knew that smile, the appreciation of good work.

  She knelt down to the mother’s level. “Mrs...?”

  “Landers,” the woman sniffled, face red from crying. “Edith Landers.”

  “Mrs. Landers, my name is Jessica Ross. I’m Dr. Carter’s granddaughter but also a nurse. Would you allow me to examine your son a moment, please?”

  “He just jumped from my arms, going after the toy airplane.” She nodded toward one of the model biplanes hanging in tempting display from the ceiling. “I... I couldn’t hold on to him.”