He moved to lift the relaxed creature aside. Instead he ended up rubbing its head and shoulders, marveling in spite of himself at the delicate bone structure, the rough-yet-silky feel of the fur. A light breeze puffed through the porch, bearing with it the heady aromas of fresh lumber and the honeysuckle that grew in glorious abandon all over his property. Giving in with a rueful smile, Sloan leaned his head against the column and closed his eyes, his hands gently stroking the fox.
Garnet smiled and nodded as the group of visiting ladies trooped down the porch steps.
“ . . . be sure to send word when Mrs. Ward comes knocking on your door. Shouldn’t be waiting much longer, I’d reckon, now you’re up and about again.”
“ . . . and do take this chastisement from the Lord to heart, Garnet. Get yourself hitched to Joshua, instead of traipsing—”
“Hush your mouth, Lurleen.” Elmira Whitaker patted Garnet’s cheek. “You’ll be all right, child. You just eat that beef soup I left in the kitchen, you hear? Put some color back in those cheeks.”
“What she needs is three glasses a day of my clover tea,” Mavis chimed in. “Leah, you make sure your sister drinks the entire jarful. It provides equal benefit imbibed warm or at room temperature.”
By the time the last farewell faded in the languid summer air, Garnet felt as limp as an overcooked snap bean.
“Let’s stay outside, settle on your favorite porch perch,” Leah said. “Mrs. Kibler’s toilet water is so overpowering I feel like I’ve bathed in it along with her.”
“I agree, but she loves it,” Garnet said. “ ‘Sweet Bye-and-Bye’, it’s called, for some reason. She purchases it from a mail order catalog.”
Leah wrapped a firm arm about Garnet’s waist and bullied her into the settee. “There. Might be hotter, but right now the humidity’s easier to breathe than the air inside the parlor.”
They both laughed. Garnet’s muscles slackened, and her eyelids drifted down.
“Papa’s going to Cooper’s,” Leah said after a while. “Reckon I better go make a list.” She rose, stretching her arms.
“Perhaps I’ll go with him,” Garnet mused drowsily. “A drive would be nice.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Can’t risk tearing Dr. MacAllister’s neatly sewn stitches.” With a saucy grin and flick of her hand, Leah scooted back inside the house.
Years ago her younger sister had mastered the art of a well-timed exit to get her way. Little saucebox, Garnet thought, smiling. She closed her eyes again, savoring her solitude.
The moment was fleeting. Only a short while later, Joshua’s buggy rounded the curve and climbed the gentle rise toward the house. Garnet remained seated, more spent than she cared to admit, dispirited as well by the news of Felicity Ward. Buttercups and bitterweed, but Joshua was persistent. She cared for him. Enjoyed his company—Joshua was one of the few gentlemen Garnet felt comfortable around, for in all the time they’d known each other, he had never . . . well, crowded her.
But she wished he’d chosen to visit another day. She wished more fervently she could scrape together an ounce of resolve and convince him not to call at all. It would be a kindness to them both.
Today, however, she was too drained. Too . . . twitchy, Meredith would say, though Garnet avoided examining whys and wherefores. A vivid memory surfaced without warning, of narrowed smoke-colored eyes in a lean face stamped with contempt and compassion. Strong hands that—
“It’s a blessing to see you looking so fit,” Joshua called, pulling his horse Ruth to a halt in front of the porch.
Garnet blinked. The disturbing memory vanished. “Tactful as always.” She smiled, watching him set the brake, double-check it, secure the reins, double-check that they were looped just so, and finally feed his horse a carrot. “How is Ruth these days?” The swaybacked piebald was ugly as a mudhole, but Joshua doted on the animal.
“Been a tad stiff lately—I asked the smith to have a look at her last month when I took her in to be reshod.” He gave Ruth a last pat and stepped up onto the porch. “Won’t make that mistake again. That bounder told me she was twenty-five if she’s a day and ought to be sold to a glue factory.” The pale eyes filled with indignation.
“At least you appreciate her, Joshua.”
“I do. But not as much as I appreciate you, Garnet.” He removed the fawn-colored fedora he favored and sat down opposite her, drawing his long legs up. “I’ve been in earnest prayer, as you know, entreating the Lord to heal you.” The corner of his mouth lifted in a shy smile. “Looking at you now, how beautifully He has answered my prayers.”
“Joshua, you should pray for better eyesight.” In reality Garnet knew she looked more like a washerwoman after a hard day’s scrubbing.
“You never take your faith seriously.” He cleared his throat. “I know, you think I take mine too seriously.”
“I think you live your faith, and I envy you for it. No—don’t say anything else. I’m not up to a debate today. Half the neighbor ladies just left. They wore me out.”
“I passed them on the way up. Garnet?” He hesitated, his long-boned fingers tracing the crease in the crown of his hat. “Are you . . . I heard about Mrs. Ward. That’s one of the reasons I stopped by. I know you’ve always felt that the Valley is your domain, that the Lord called you in a sense to be His emissary through your drawings.”
Sometimes Joshua could be endearingly stuffy. “Perhaps I do, but that doesn’t mean I’ve a deed for the land between Winchester and Roanoke. Anyone—including Felicity Ward—is free to make use of the scenery.”
He smiled at her, his crooked teeth boyishly charming. “I suppose we’re all free to enjoy God’s beauty, though until now I thought you were the only one who insisted on capturing it on paper.” He paused, adding after a moment, “I may not approve of your habits, Garnet—wandering about unaccompanied, I mean. But I admire your drawings very much. Don’t trouble yourself over Mrs. Ward’s stature. Remember how, in the book of Galatians, Saint Paul instructs us to not compare ourselves to others?”
“Comparing myself to Felicity Ward would be about like comparing Signal Knob to Pike’s Peak in Colorado. I read an article in Harper’s Magazine that said Pike’s Peak was over fourteen thousand feet high. Can you imagine?” She shook her head. “I’d love to see a mountain that high, but I wouldn’t want to live in its shadow.”
“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”
Garnet stiffened at the reproving tone. “Joshua, I am not hiding my light under a bushel. I’m merely agreeing with you. Besides . . .” With relief she heard Leah and her father approaching. “Paul also admonishes us not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought.”
“Humility is supposed to be a spiritual conditioning of our hearts, not a catalog of our inadequacies.” Joshua, too, heard the voices. He leaned forward, determination blazing from the pale eyes and jutting chin. “But perhaps the doubts I see in you reflect a restlessness in your heart. Perhaps what you need more than anything is the security of place—something that your art can never provide. Garnet, I—”
“Papa’s making a run over to Cooper’s Store. There’s an item or two I need to remind him to purchase.” Ignoring the fiery jab of pain, Garnet rose, forcing Joshua to do the same. His manners, if not his perceptions, were impeccable.
“A fine afternoon, is it not, Joshua my boy?” her father said as he stepped through the front door. “Don’t tell me you’re leaving then?”
“Garnet’s tired.” He sent her an apologetic smile that belied the determination. “And I have an appointment in Woodstock.” In a clumsy, unexpected move, he grabbed Garnet’s right hand and squeezed it tight. “I’ve given her something to pray about.” He released her and settled the fedora on his head.
“What was that all about?” her father asked moments later, his gaze on the dust curling out from Joshua’s departing buggy.
Garnet examined her fingers, still numb from Joshua’s almost frantic grip. It was the first time in three years he�
�d been less than the perfect gentleman. “I’m not sure. He’s never so much as held my hand at a picnic before.”
“What do you expect?” Jacob said, giving her braid a light tug. “You never let on you’d welcome it.”
The lash of loneliness struck hard, raising welts. “I still don’t,” she managed.
Another image of Sloan MacAllister flashed through her, as startling and forceful as Joshua’s impromptu gesture. Mr. MacAllister had held her in his arms. Had bound her wounds, soothed her fears, treated her with a familiarity Garnet had experienced only within her family.
He had also intimidated and frightened her.
Yet when his hand engulfed hers, the grip hadn’t left red marks.
An unwelcome sliver of knowledge more painful than the wound to her shoulder forced its way to acknowledgement. If Sloan MacAllister had been sitting opposite her on the porch instead of Joshua Jones, she would have welcomed a handshake—and more.
For the rest of the afternoon, Garnet closed her mind to all thoughts of Mr. MacAllister.
At a little before five Jacob returned from the store. He poked his head inside the parlor where Garnet was plowing her way through one of Leah’s scholarly books on botany. “I’m going to clean up,” he said, “then I want to have a talk with you, Garnet.”
“This sounds serious. What about?”
Her father searched her face for a long moment, then heaved a sigh. “Doc Porter happened to be at Cooper’s while I was waiting for our order. Tells me he’s got to go to Roanoke, won’t be back ’til the first of the month.”
Leah had followed Jacob into the parlor. She scowled at the news. “Typical of the man. Never around when you need him.”
“That’ll be enough of that, miss.”
“I’m doing well, Papa,” Garnet hurriedly inserted. “I don’t need—oh. The stitches.” She bit her lip. “You and Leah can—”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Leah interrupted. “We’ll ask Mr. MacAllister. After all, he put them in.” She nodded in satisfaction. “Should have been checking up on her all along, of course. This serves him right, I’d say.”
Jacob lifted an eyebrow at her, and Leah subsided. “I’m going to wash up,” he repeated mildly, “and then we’ll talk. Did Lurleen bring any of her Republican Cake? I’ll have me a piece of that, lasses, and we’ll discuss what’s best for Garnet.”
Thirteen
There’s going to be a storm. What if I catch a chill, in my weakened condition?”
Jacob chuckled. “Aye, you’ve a fine head on your shoulders, lass. These past few days I’ve been taking note of all your canny excuses. Let’s see . . . ‘a chill’ would be, yes, number seven. But we’re still not turning around, Garnet. It’s been two weeks. You need those stitches out.”
He glanced up at the sky, then jiggled the reins. “Let’s pick up the pace a bit, lads,” he said to the two horses, a tacit agreement that earned a small smile from Garnet. Without turning his head, Jacob shifted the reins to his left hand so he could tug the brim of her bonnet with his right. “How did you persuade your sister to tie the ribbons for you?”
“Didn’t even try. I tied them myself.”
A deer fly was pestering Goatsbeard. The horse swiveled his ear and gave a vexed headshake that set the harness to jingling. Jacob watched the battle for a little bit before he dispatched the deer fly with a single well-aimed flick of the whip. Finally he spoke. “And was the pain worth it?”
“It was better than listening to a lecture.”
When Garnet spoke in that flat monotone, further badgering would only result in a quiet but unbridgeable withdrawal. Jacob hunched his shoulders and began to whistle between his teeth.
A mile or so from Tom’s Brook, Garnet’s spine relaxed, and Jacob heard the slow exhalation of her breath. Her reluctance to visit Sloan MacAllister might be nothing more than shyness; of his three daughters, Garnet had always been the most sensitive, and Jacob was willing to concede the awkwardness of today’s visit. Still and all, her protest over the past days rang more of inexplicable anxiety than shyness.
Jacob turned the horses down the narrow road that he’d been told led to Sloan MacAllister’s place. He longed for Garnet to share her fears instead of facing the world with that heartbreaking smile and wrenching humor. But she hadn’t been that open with him for five years now.
Lord Jesus . . . but why? If he just understood, he’d move heaven and earth to give her back the joy of her salvation.
Jacob swallowed the aching knot of regret. “According to Mr. Cooper, the Pritchetts’ old place is ’bout a quarter-mile down this road. We should be there soon. Good Lord willing, Sloan can see to your stitches, and we’ll be on our way back home long before the rain hits.” Mentally Jacob crossed his fingers and prayed for a gullywasher.
“You’re assuming he’ll make an exception and be willing to perform the service, Papa. Haven’t you paid any attention to all the stories?”
“This is different. He’ll not mind seeing you. Trust me, Garnet. He’ll not mind.”
“It’s no different,” was her toneless response, “and he’s more likely to mind very much.”
Neither of them spoke again. Moments later, Jacob turned the horses onto a rough track that dipped down, crossed a shallow creek, then undulated out of sight up a gentle hill. In the distance he could hear the rhythmic pounding of a hammer.
So could Garnet. “I told you. He’s busy, Papa.”
“How long can it take to snip a few pieces of thread?” Jacob injected jocularity in the words, but the girl’s reluctance was beginning to spook him as well. The pale freckled face was almost ethereal, still as a corpse. It made no sense. No sense at all.
But didn’t it remind him of that afternoon five years ago? She’d returned home then with this same look of—of awful serenity, splattered with mud and her eyes full of desperate lies, while she promised him over and over that she was fine, just shaken because the horse had taken a notion to run off and their dog, Chowder, hadn’t come when she called.
Jacob prayed fervently that he hadn’t misunderstood Sloan MacAllister’s nature.
The man stood at the top of a ladder while he fastened unpainted boards onto the side of the house with the skill of a seasoned carpenter. Jacob suppressed a pinch of guilt, and a bit of uneasiness. The back of Sloan’s shirt was damp with sweat, and he’d rolled up the sleeves to reveal strongly muscled forearms. Sunbeams poured over Massanutten Mountain, glinting off a shaggy black head of hair that hadn’t seen barber’s shears in a long time.
He resembled a sober physician not a bit. Aye, Lord, and what would You be having me do then? A warning flicker gnawed in his innards, but Jacob resolutely pulled the buggy to a halt beneath a giant chestnut tree. He set the brake and turned to Garnet. “I’ll help you down.”
“I’ll just wait here, while you go speak to him.” Her chin lifted. “It will save time.”
The lass could outstubborn a tree stump. “Very well.” He settled his flat cap on his head, climbed down, and strolled across the yard. “Mr. MacAllister! Good day to you. Could we have a moment of your time?”
“Medical advice costs fifty dollars up front. No exceptions.” He didn’t even turn around, adding insult to injury by not even pausing in his work.
Fifty dollars? Glory be, but Jacob hadn’t anticipated that response. Sloan had refused any payment whatsoever the night he’d brought Garnet home. And he’d fixed a clear-eyed glare on Jacob that could have hewn an oak timber when Jacob tried to insist. He stared up at the broad back in consternation.
Behind him, Garnet’s soft voice called his name, the undertone of pleading igniting a spark of anger. He took a deep breath, planted his fists on his hips, and bellowed, “I ought to knock the ladder out from beneath your feet, ye stiff-necked, prideful young fool. Come down here and face me like a man, and tell me to my face that you’ll be charging so—”
“Jacob?” Sloan interrupted, his head twisting to peer downward. A ru
eful smile lifted the corners of his mustache, and a second later he’d shimmied down the ladder, landing with light-footed grace in front of Jacob. “Sorry. Didn’t know it was you.”
“Fifty dollars?” Still rattled, Jacob felt like gathering a handful of Sloan’s damp shirt and shaking him. “And where would you be getting the gall to commit such extortion?”
“Same place as the folks who see fit to knock on my door at all hours, even though I’ve made it plain I’m no longer doctoring.” Unabashed, Sloan wiped his sweating face on his forearm. “What brings you up this way, hmm? Come to tell me all the mistakes I’m making? Don’t keep me in suspense. How am I doing?”
“I . . . um . . . ah . . .”
Sloan dropped the bantering, frowning a little. His gaze lifted toward the buggy, narrowed. “Garnet’s with you? Is she all right? She found her bag, didn’t she?” He cleared his throat. “It was late; that’s why I didn’t knock.”
“Aye, she’s fine, fine. Very relieved to have her things.” Jacob ran a finger back and forth over his knuckles. “That is . . . Sloan, well, Doc Porter’s left town for the summer, don’t you know, and she needs the stitches removed. I thought . . . well, I hoped you’d not mind so much doing the job yourself. In light of your initial reception, I can see I might have presumed a wee bit, and for that I’m sorry.”
“Been a while since I saw a grown man blush,” Sloan said after a prolonged pause. Then he thumped Jacob’s back. “Since I put ’em in, it’s only fitting that I remove them. Just don’t go around telling everyone, is all I ask.”
“The fifty dollars ought to keep folks from the door regardless.”
“If not, I can always raise it to seventy-five.”
He started for the buggy, leaving Jacob staring at his back, the niggling doubts swollen enough to choke a mule.
“I would invite you to wait in my parlor while I clean up a bit, but there’s no furniture,” Sloan said when Jacob drew abreast. “ ’Fraid it will have to be the kitchen, if you don’t mind.”
Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1) Page 10