Shenandoah Home (Sinclair Legacy Book 1)

by Sara Mitchell

  He helped her to her feet, and for just a moment allowed his hands to remain on her forearms. When she didn’t flinch or pull away, he gave in to the need to hold her. Slowly, carefully he drew her close, and pressed her cheek against his chest.

  “You’re safe,” he said, knowing even as he spoke the words that they might well be as much a lie as the flimsy story Garnet had concocted to provide her family with the same illusion.

  Sloan didn’t care. Right now, more than his skill as a physician, Garnet Sinclair needed comfort. The fact that she allowed this level of intimacy after what she’d been through humbled him. It also alarmed him.

  He had no business feeling what he was feeling toward her right now.

  He was in almost as much trouble as Garnet Sinclair.

  Sixteen

  Garnet listened to the roar of the rain while she watched Sloan MacAllister efficiently move around his large, bare kitchen, lighting the stove, filling a battered tin kettle with water from a rickety pump. Moments later the sound of percolating and the scent of coffee filled the room.

  “Will Phineas be all right?” she asked once, when a frenzied gust of wind rattled the door.

  “He’ll curl up inside the den I fashioned for him out of empty fruit crates. It’s snug against the back corner of the porch, and won’t blow away. Didn’t you see it?” He turned from the stove, a slight smile lifting the corner of his mustache.

  “I’m afraid I only noticed Phineas.” Among other things . . . like the man standing at the stove, and what he’d been doing to her. She lifted her left shoulder experimentally, wincing even as she marveled at the freedom of movement.

  “How does it feel?”

  “Much better than before. Thank you. You were right, it is stiff.”

  Sloan handed her a mug of the steaming liquid. “I’ll give you a series of exercises. Within a week or two, your shoulder should be good as new.”

  “You’re a very good—” She swallowed the word.

  “Go on and say it.” His voice was resigned. He handed her a mug of steaming coffee and dropped down across from her into a dilapidated chair that matched the one on the front porch. “I’m a good doctor, right?”

  A lopsided smile stretched her lips, faded. “Well . . . yes. You are. Even if you don’t want to acknowledge it.”

  His fingers drummed on the tabletop, then massaged the back of his neck. After a moment an exasperated breath exploded through his tightly pressed lips. “God’s not going to let me run away from it, I suppose.”

  Despite sharing her secret and his insistence that she call him Sloan, Garnet hadn’t expected such a personal comment, and it made her feel awkward. She wrapped her fingers around the thick stoneware mug and took a sip of coffee, which was strong enough to strip paint.

  Through the window over a cavernous sink she could watch the storm with a cozy intimacy that reminded her of home. How amazing, to sit here listening to the howling wind and the relentless tattoo of raindrops. Her father was stranded inside Sloan’s barn. She was stranded—alone—inside Sloan’s house. He had bared her shoulder, and she had bared her troubled heart. Yet she wasn’t afraid. I’m not afraid of this man.

  Unfortunately, she was afraid for him, and more than ever afraid for herself. Was her decision to tell right and responsible, or had she selfishly made the second greatest mistake of her life?

  Regrets were futile. She would simply entreat Sloan to say nothing, even to her father, and everything would continue as before—No. If regrets were futile, denial was as childish as trying to turn her head from a spoonful of medicine. For better or worse, another person—who happened to be a man—shared her secret now. And in a corner of her heart, Garnet welcomed the knowledge, because for the first time she didn’t have to bear the burden alone.

  She felt as though she were wearing new skin, fashioned from cheese gauze. Light, airy. Tentative. Oh, but it was extraordinary. A strange man had touched her, handled her—never mind that it was in the role of a concerned physician—and she had been safe.

  Safe. Shielded. Protected, cared for, and sheltered. She hadn’t understood Sloan MacAllister then, and in spite of a growing familiarity she didn’t understand him now.

  But she wanted to.

  Garnet dropped four lumps of sugar into her mug, stirring distractedly while her mind grappled with how to proceed. Meredith and Leah would ask questions, she thought: Engage him in conversation, not sit here in silence, inwardly debating over procedure.

  She took another sip of coffee without shuddering, set the mug aside, and propped her chin in her hands. “Would you tell me what you meant about God not letting you run away?”

  “Ah.” Head tipped back, Sloan contemplated a smoke-blackened beam in the ceiling for a long time. Garnet tensed. For some reason, he looked almost angry. “Your father’s a very godly man, isn’t be?”

  “A saint,” Garnet agreed with a wistful sigh. “I always wished I could have a faith like his.”

  “In my experience, that kind of faith generally springs from a simple mind or a simple heart. No offense to your father, of course.”

  He shrugged, his expression chilled with bitterness. Garnet’s nascent confidence faltered even further. “For me, faith is no longer a matter of simplicity,” he continued. “Perhaps it never has been. I don’t know. I’m not sure I can answer your question. In the past I enjoyed a spiritual life, if you want to refer to it that way. I talked to God, He . . . talked to me, in a sense—is that what you want to hear? Right now there’re some problems, all on my part, of course. I’m not deluded enough to believe it’s God who went astray.”

  A thunderclap shook the house, and Sloan saluted with a mocking gesture. “He agrees with me. You look doubtful, or rather as though you’re wondering if perhaps I deserve a lightning bolt for my irreverence.”

  Garnet managed to shake her head. Well, she’d asked, hadn’t she? His anger and bitterness coiled about him like hissing snakes, threatening to strike anyone within reach. Including her. A tortured spirit, her father had told Leah. But, like her father—like Joshua, for that matter—Sloan MacAllister still felt confident enough to talk to God as though the Lord really heard the words. Despite his obvious hostility toward this discussion, Garnet pressed forward, desperate to understand, herself as much as him. “Sloan?”

  “What?”

  “Why did you . . . go astray?”

  He stiffened, a muscle twitching in his jaw as he raked her in a furious glance. “That, my dear, is none of your business.” He rose abruptly, sending the chair screeching across the linoleum floor with such force it toppled. “Baring your soul doesn’t give you license to trample mine. I’ll go fetch your father. Wait here. Spend your energy figuring out how to tell him about your secret past instead.”

  Garnet stared after the inflexible wall of his back as he stalked across the room. He turned at the doorway. “You didn’t learn much about caution five years ago after all, did you?” He disappeared through the doorway.

  She was alone. All the lightness had fled, leaving her more isolated and confused than ever. Sloan had touched her so gently with his hands—then wounded her so cruelly with his words.

  Perhaps she needed to be afraid of Sloan MacAllister after all.

  Sloan found Sinclair’s two horses contentedly munching hay in a couple of stalls that Jacob had cleaned. Man certainly didn’t mind making himself at home. He’d even broken open a bale of straw and scattered it on the floor of the stalls; Sloan looked closer and discovered that Sinclair had cleaned Dulcie’s as well, even groomed the mare. For the first time in a week her tail flowed free of tangles, burrs, and bits of straw. He’d kept himself busy, the past hour or so.

  Now, however, Sinclair himself was fast asleep on the seat of his buggy, hands laced over his chest, his cap pulled over his eyes. The deluge outside hadn’t disturbed his slumber any more than it troubled the three placid horses.

  Sloan grabbed a rag off a nail and mopped his face. Water from h
is mackintosh pooled at his feet. Glowering and foul-tempered and fighting guilt, he stomped over to the buggy and gave the seat a hard shake.

  “Wake up, Jacob. Nap time’s over.”

  The older man sputtered, staring wildly around before blinking himself awake. “Sloan. Didn’t realize I’d dropped off. Och, but this buggy’s a terrible bed. And it sounds a terrible storm.” He stretched, then cleared his throat. “What’d you come out here for, with it raining fit to float another ark?” All of a sudden he sat up straight. “Garnet? Did you finish taking out the stitches? Is something wrong with the lass?”

  Sloan hunched his shoulders. “Not physically, no. But I probably hurt her feelings.” No, you oaf, you did hurt her. Might as well have backhanded her, the way he’d responded to her tentative query.

  Jacob climbed down, slapped his cap against his thigh, and settled it back on his head. “And you decided a soaking retreat was better than an apology.”

  “No doubt I deserve to be showered with a bucket of hot oil.” He felt cornered, but matters had gone too far to bolt now. “Here. I brought you a slicker.” He pulled it out and tossed it to Jacob. “Garnet has something to say—things you need to hear. You won’t like them, but we may as well get it over with.”

  “She told you what happened, didn’t she?” His hand gripped Sloan’s forearm with crushing force. “That summer? She’s told you! Lord be praised, I knew you were the man, I sensed it from the first. All these years . . .”

  “Be careful how you thank God for His machinations. They tend to sneak up when you least expect them and deliver a swift kick.” He pulled free. “Hurry up. I don’t like the sound of the wind.”

  Jacob snorted. “Just a summer thunderstorm. ’Twill pass within the hour.” He yanked the garment over his head and followed Sloan into the deluge.

  All around them the wind shrieked, blowing rain in their faces, setting the trees to wild swaying. Halfway across the yard, a loud crack rent the air. A thrill of warning iced down Sloan’s spine. He jerked his head up, just in time to glimpse a dark shape through the curtain of rain. It was a tree limb thick as his torso, hurtling down toward them with the speed of a thrown spear.

  There was no time to shout a warning, no time to even think. Sloan threw himself against Jacob, wrapping his arms around the wiry body as they fell to the ground in a welter of tangled legs and tree branches. Rain and wet leaves blinded him, twigs gouged his head and mackintosh-swathed torso, and something hard whacked his back and shoulders with enough force to take his breath.

  Wheezing, still hanging on to Jacob, he rolled once, twice until they were out from under the severed branch. Rain pelted the side of Sloan’s face, blinding him. He sucked air into his lungs and hoped their mackintoshes had protected them from puncture wounds. He’d hate to have to stitch himself up as well as Jacob.

  The other man squirmed beneath him. Sloan managed to roll off into the sodden grass, where he lay, still winded, indifferent to the pummeling rain. Ought to move, he supposed. Be a shame to escape being crushed to death only to drown.

  “Sloan?” A trembling hand bumped his nose. “You all right, son?”

  “Nothing’s broken.” Sloan sat up with a groan to squint sideways at the blurred lump that was Jacob Sinclair. “How ’bout you?”

  “Feel like a cliff fell on top o’ me, but nae doubt ye saved us both from a worse fate. Twigs scratched my cheek, and my hip’s complainin’ a bit. But God is gracious. If the entire tree had fallen, might have been a different story, don’t you know.”

  Sloan opened his mouth, thought better of it, and settled for a churlish assent. He put out a hand to Jacob. For a moment they stood in the pouring rain, staring through a dripping gray veil at the mass of leaves. “Might not have been the whole tree,” he said. “But it certainly felt like it.”

  “Limb’s big enough for one.” Jacob took a couple of steps, nudging the jagged end of the severed branch with his muddied boot. “Almost a foot in diameter here where it tore—’tis a shame. It was a fine old shag-bark hickory. A difficult wood for cabinetry, but ideal for tool handles, wheel spokes, and the like. Good firewood, too,” he added reluctantly.

  “Help yourself.”

  They continued to stand there, staring at each other like a couple of shipwrecked survivors, until a grin winked in Jacob’s blood-smeared face. “You look like someone poured a bucket of muddy water over your head, lad.”

  “So do you.” Sloan wiped mud and grass from his fingers so he could examine Jacob’s cheek, where pink rivulets ran into the collar of his shirt. “A twig did get you, here—left cheekbone. But it’s shallow.”

  “Reckon we should go inside, Sloan? Garnet’s bound to be fretting.”

  “Mm.” He finished examining Jacob’s head for lumps. “It would be drier.”

  At that moment the sky brightened, infusing the air with golden sunbeams that poured over the earth in streams of light. The storm slackened in the blink of an eye from deluge to melodious drips. Somewhere a lone songbird warbled an all-clear, and the scent of freshly washed earth filled Sloan’s nostrils. He lifted his gaze toward the sky, filled with a grudging admiration for nature’s extravagant display.

  “All we need is a rainbow,” he muttered, unaware that he’d spoken aloud until Jacob took his arm and turned him around.

  Arching over the blue-washed eastern sky, a rainbow coalesced in shimmering iridescence, stretching toward the earth from the wake of tattered charcoal clouds. As real as the ancient mountains beneath it—as impossible to grasp as God’s grace.

  Seventeen

  The screen door banged shut. “Papa!” Even from this distance Sloan saw quick alarm flood Garnet’s face. “What happened?”

  “ ’Tis not so bad as it appears!” Jacob called back.

  “Don’t—” worry, Sloan intended to say, except Garnet whirled about and disappeared back inside. “We better get on up there, reassure her,” he finished instead. “She’s enough on her mind, without adding this to it.”

  He ached from his teeth to his toes. He was soaked, he was covered with mud, his knees still knocked from how close they’d come to a serious mishap. He was in no condition to soothe the overwrought nerves of a semihysterical female. On the other hand, this was Garnet Sinclair, who deserved not only his consideration but an apology. A very handsome apology.

  When they trooped up the back stairs and through the door into his kitchen, however, Sloan encountered a determined red-haired fairy instead of a tearful female. Her movements competent, every gesture graceful despite her proclaimed stiffness, she flitted about heating water and rummaging in his cupboards. His medical bag had been placed on the table, the instruments he’d used to remove Garnet’s stitches by the sink, as though waiting to be cleaned. She’d even discovered the pile of threadbare towels Sloan kept stacked on a shelf.

  When they shuffled into the room, she peered from behind the cupboard door. “Papa . . . your face is bleeding.” She shut the cupboard and took several steps toward them. “Mr. MacAllister? What happened to you? You look like you’re in pain.”

  He hung the soaked mackintoshes on a row of wooden pegs, then managed to walk toward the sink without limping. “I’m fine. Your father’s fine. Tree branch fell, caught us as we were crossing the yard. Don’t make a fuss.”

  “Lad saved us both, more like.” Jacob took the towel Garnet thrust at him. He swabbed his face, then dodged out of the way as Garnet tried to examine it. “Sloan’s already pronounced it naught but a wee scratch. Leave be, lass.”

  “You both need dry clothes.” She handed Sloan a towel, avoiding both his fingers and his gaze.

  “I’ll see what I can scrounge up.” Casually he positioned himself so that she had no choice but to acknowledge him, before adding in a soft voice, “Thanks for your help, Garnet. Feel free to rummage while we change, but try to limit extreme movement in that shoulder, hmm? And don’t lift anything over five pounds.”

  “That won’t be hard. Your cupbo
ard’s almost as bare as a dandelion in the hands of a four-year-old.”

  Bemused, Sloan gestured Jacob toward the back stairs. All the way up to his bedroom he wondered at Garnet’s expression. Had it been a trick of the light, a twinkle of humor he’d spied whisking through Garnet’s eyes like a will-o’-the-wisp? Or a flash of fear?

  Thirty minutes later they were gathered outside on the veranda, sitting in not quite companionable silence while Sloan and Jacob sipped Garnet’s much better tasting coffee. (“I washed the pot and only ground half as many beans,” she’d admitted.) Droplets of water plopped from the eaves. Birds twittered among the dripping trees. The ululating wail of a passing train floated through the steam-scented afternoon air.

  Feet together flat on the floor, Garnet perched next to her father. A half-smile curved her lips as she and Jacob exchanged idle chitchat. Thus far the topic uppermost in their minds had been ignored.

  Sloan, by design, slumped in a chair on the other side of Garnet. He maintained a restless scrutiny and wondered how many years would pass before he forgave himself for his earlier insensitivity toward her. She might be smiling and chatting, but he could see tension in the taut wrist bones protruding from her neat shirtwaist. She’d trusted him, and he’d ground that fragile gift to dust with his cursed temper.

  So Sloan sipped coffee and waited, wrestling with his own internal adversaries. Garnet’s tentative question about his faith only heightened his dilemma: He no longer viewed her as his patient. Even more dangerous, he could no longer use her surface resemblance to Jenna as a barrier, no longer cared that Garnet’s hair was red. Red! he thought, almost choking on the coffee. Unlike Jenna’s, Garnet’s hair gleamed in the sunshine with every shade from cinnamon to russet, infused with gossamer gold-tipped threads. Jenna’s had never reflected so many shades, nor captured the sunlight in such a flaming nimbus. How could Garnet regard her hair as a curse? Jenna’s vanity had been enormous; with the advantage of hindsight Sloan saw how deliberately she had drawn attention to hers by tossing her head, fiddling with a dangling strand while her eyes peeped out from the screen of her lashes. She was forever patting it, especially when she—