Southern Seduction

by Brenda Jernigan

  Looking at the pile of rubble made Brooke feel numb, but knew she had to keep her wits about her. Especially now that Margaret was sobbing uncontrollably.

  “What about a doctor?” Brooke asked.

  “He’s been sent for,” Jeffries answered. “In the meantime, we must get him and the others out before it’s too late.”

  Brooke, Margaret and Mammy stood by, watching helplessly. Finally, after an hour of digging and painstakingly moving the rubble one stick, one board at a time, they pulled out two men, one of whom was dead. Now there were two more men to find, and one of those was Travis.

  Panic seized Brooke. “Can you see him?” she called, but no one answered. She started toward the workers with the intention of helping, but Mammy intercepted her.

  “Where you goin’?” Mammy said. “Dey are doin’ all dey can, and you wouldn’t want to get in de way, you hear.”

  “But Travis might be --” She couldn’t even say the words. What would she do if Travis was dead? She’d never planned to have him in her life in the first place, but now that she did, she didn’t want to live without him.

  “There he is,” a worker called out.

  Brooke hurried around Mammy, frantic to get to her husband. He wasn’t moving, but someone said he was still breathing. The rescuers carried him over to a clear area and placed Travis on the cold ground.

  Margaret, finally recovering her wits, rushed to get some blankets from the buggy. Brooke knelt down beside her husband and reached for his hand. It was cold, but she could feel his heart beating beneath his chilled skin. There was blood everywhere from cuts, and she needed to stanch it. She tore strips from her petticoats and tried to clean his face. She needed to find where he was bleeding in order to stop the flow of fresh blood.

  Travis was deathly pale. “Oh my God!” Brooke murmured over and over again. All she could do was shake her head. He’d lost so much blood. “Open your eyes, darling,” Brooke murmured. When nothing happened she spoke more forcefully. “Don’t you die on me.” She well remembered how sweetness never seemed to work with her husband.

  A buggy came barreling down the road, and Doctor Smart wasted little time getting out before the horses had barely been drawn to a halt. He strode over to where they were. “Get out of the way so I can see my patient,” he ordered.

  “You have to do something,” Brooke implored.

  “Just give me some room, and I’ll do what I can. I don’t need you hovering over me and getting in my way.”

  Brooke stood back and bumped into Ben, one of the men she recognized from previous visits to the mill. “How did this happen?”

  “Master Travis said he thought that someone had been messing with the timbers,” Ben said. “It appeared that the support beams had been cut,” he went on. “Master Travis said he knew who was responsible.”

  “So someone meant for this to happen?” Brooke said more to herself than to anyone.

  She stood back while the doctor examined Travis. While she waited, impatiently wringing her hands, Mr. Jeffries came to stand beside her.

  “Do you have any idea who would like to see harm come to Travis?” he asked.

  “Travis could have any number of enemies, I suppose, but the only one I can think of is Hesione’s father. After he was shown to be a coward at the duel, Jeremy said Travis could have trouble from him.”

  “I see.”

  Doctor Smart stood up and shook his head. Brooke’s heart was hammering with fear. “What’s the matter, doctor?”

  “He’s lost a lot of blood. I’ve got the bleeding stopped but there is nothing else I can do,” Doctor Smart looked at Brooke and Margaret. “Best take him home and wait. It’s in God’s hands now.”

  Tears spilled down Brooke’s face, but she managed to nod in agreement.

  Mammy put an arm around Brooke in a comforting embrace. “Don’t you worry, Miz Brooke. I ain’t goin’ to let not’ing happen to dat boy, you hear.” Mammy told her.

  Brooke nodded, numbly. She wanted to believe Mammy, but Travis’s face was much too pale. Even to her unskilled eyes, he appeared near death. She watched, feeling helpless as the men lifted him into the carriage.

  Flinching at every bump and jostle, Brooke cradled Travis’s head as they drove home. Margaret was very quiet, and that was all right with Brooke. Her mother-in-law was the least of her worries now.

  They took Travis to his room where his clothes were stripped from him and he was placed into his bed. Brooke had a chair placed beside the bed, and she took up her vigil all through the long night.

  Mammy kept checking on her to make sure she was eating, but Brooke refused to move. Nor did she let anyone else take her place. She was so afraid that Travis would die, and she wouldn’t be with him.

  Margaret tried to help, but she cried inconsolably every time she looked at her son. She finally had made herself so sick from worrying that she took to her bed.

  For the next two days, Brooke talked to Travis constantly, trying to get some kind of response from him. She begged him to get well. She pleaded, she demanded, she forced him to drink broth, though little of it went down.

  And she prayed.

  The days passed slowly until it was Christmas Day. The house was too quiet, and no one felt any Christmas cheer. Doctor Smart told them if Travis finally woke up, then he’d survive. But the waiting was difficult. They wouldn’t know anything for a few days.

  It was the middle of the night Brooke awoke with a start. Had she heard something? When she looked at Travis, his coloring appeared better but his eyes were still closed.

  “Please don’t leave me,” Brooke begged. “I might not have wanted you in the beginning, but sometimes we don’t know what we want until we think we might lose it.” Her voice broke as the tears she’d been trying hard to hold back began to slide down her face. “I don’t want to lose you, Travis. Please don’t give up. I still don’t know enough about Moss Grove. I need you to teach me.

  “And I can see your smile, that is, if your eyes were open, so please open your eyes. You always told me I’d never be able to run a plantation. All right, I’m admitting that perhaps you were correct. And if you would just look at me, I would give you permission to gloat as much as you wish. I know how much Moss Grove means to you. It means more to you than anything else – you’ve always told me so.”

  “Not more than anything,” Travis murmured, his voice faint. He moved his fingers within her hand. At first Brook thought she had imagined the movement, but suddenly his fingers moved again, closing over hers.

  Brooke looked intently at Travis, willing him to wake. And finally he opened his eyes. They were a bit hazy, they looked warm, not the clear blue she was used to seeing, but he was alive and that was all that mattered.

  She jumped to her feet. “You don’t know how wonderful it is to see your eyes open. How do you feel?”

  “Awful,” he rasped. “Water.”

  Brooke poured water from a pitcher by the bedside with trembling fingers. She held the glass to his lips, and he took several sips of the cooling, reviving liquid. When he’d finished, she sat the glass back on the stand and returned her attention to him. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, but she was afraid she’d hurt him.

  “What else can I get you?” she asked.

  “A gun,” Travis said in a deep ragged voice.

  “A what?” Brooke asked, she couldn’t have possible heard him correctly. “You must be delirious. You’ve been unconscious for three days. Why would you want a gun?”

  Travis winced in pain as he tried to move. “I’m going to shoot that son of a bitch like I should have the first time.”

  “George D’Aquin?” Hesione’s father was the only one Brooke could think of. “Why?”

  “Because he is the one who’s been trying to kill me. This time, one of my men saw him and they caught his foreman who confessed. The foreman was also the one who pushed you from the boat,” Travis said. He tried to sit up. The effort was too great. He san
k back to the pillows with a wrenching groan. “Damn. I think my entire body aches.”

  Brooke knew by the set of Travis’s jaw that her headstrong husband was going to be hard to get along with. Then she remembered the last time he’d been shot. She’d had to leave his care to Mammy because he’d been absolutely impossible.

  But now she was his wife, and Brooke was going to take care of him if it killed both of them. And she wasn’t taking any nonsense from him, either.

  “I guess you would feel terrible. After all, a building fell on you. You’re very lucky that you survived. Two of the men who were with you did not.”

  “Which two?”

  Brooke thought for a moment. “John and Jeff, I believe I heard someone say.”

  “Help me sit up,” Travis ordered.

  “A please might be nice,” Brooke informed him.

  “All right, please,” he grumbled.

  Brooke smiled as she placed several pillows behind his back. It was like trying to tame a wild animal, she thought as she struggled to get Travis up and in place. And to think a moment ago, she’d been praying for his recovery.

  “Thank you,” Travis said then gawked at her a long moment. “You look like hell, my dear.”

  Brooke raised an eyebrow. “Thank you so much for the compliment.”

  Travis reached for her hand. “You’re always beautiful to me, but you do look tired. I see dark circles under your eyes.”

  “I guess so,” she snapped. “I’ve been sitting in this chair for three days, wondering if you would live or die. Unfortunately you lived. And what are the first words out of your mouth? An insult.”

  Travis chuckled. “I know you don’t mean that.”

  “Don’t I?” she replied. Brooke tried to jerk her hand from his. “You haven’t said anything nice to me since you’ve woke up. I’m beginning to think I prefer you the other way.”

  Travis ignored her. “You said I’d been out for three days?”

  She nodded.

  “In that case, how about Merry Christmas, darling,” he said.

  Travis had such a boyish look about him, much like a bad child who knew he’d been bad but was trying to charm his way out of a punishment. The look melted Brooke’s heart. “Merry Christmas to you, too.”

  “I don’t have any mistletoe,” he said with a grin. “So I guess I can’t kiss you.”

  “I don’t need mistletoe,” she told him leaning over the bed. “The only thing I need is you.”

  “In that case, my dear, you should be exceptionally happy for the rest of your life because you definitely have me now and always.”

  “And you’ll always have us, too,” Brooke said as she kissed him.

  Travis pulled her up on the bed with him and gazed questioningly into her eyes. “Us?”

  Brooke presented him with an enormous smile. “It seems your plan worked better than you expected.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You’re going to be a father, Travis Montgomery,” Brooke told him.

  Many expressions filtered across Travis’s face, but the last one was the best. Brooke finally saw true love in Travis’s eyes and she knew that she had found something she never through she would ever have.

  Brooke had truly found happiness in a man’s arms.