“Ain’t you two got no place else to go so you can talk over old times without botherin’ me?”
Agnes didn’t even turn to acknowledge Mac’s outburst. “Zeke, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to wait ’til supper to hear the news. Why don’t you come with me now?”
Zeke was glad to get away from whatever was eatin’ at Mac. “I’d be pleased to, ma’am.”
Mac stared for a moment at the closed door. So, Linnet was in a place called Spring Lick. He grabbed a half-full bottle of whiskey from the shelf and went to the old oak tree by the spring. He placed the bottle to his lips and hardly noticed the burn of the raw whiskey; he was used to the sensation by now.
The girl ate at him, he thought. Night and day she ate at him. How many times had he gone to her empty cabin and looked around, remembering the hours they had spent there? It wasn’t that he missed her, it was just that she was like a sore that grew in him, a sore that hurt all the time.
Mac drained the last of the whiskey and found there hadn’t been enough to stop his thoughts of Linnet. What was so different about her? He’d been in love with Amy Trulock but he’d gotten over her leaving him. Why did he still think of Linnet constantly? There was only one way to rid himself of her ghost, and that was to go to Spring Lick and see her. She’d probably be married now with two dirty, ugly kids and she’d be fat and tired like the other women. When he saw her like that then he’d be able to laugh at himself and he’d be content never to see her again.
He smiled for the first time in a long while. It would be good to get her voice out of his mind, those precise little words, good to never again see those strange eyes that changed from gray to green to blue to angry flashes of red. He tried to suck more whiskey from the empty bottle but couldn’t and in anger threw it and watched it shatter against a distant tree.
Linnet sat bent over a quilting frame, her needle flying in and out, while around her the women gossiped nastily, ripping Linnet’s friend Nettie Waters apart. Linnet didn’t dare say a word or she knew she’d cause the wrath of the people to come down on her own head.
She’d been in Spring Lick almost a year now and she was counting the hours until she could leave. She’d left Sweetbriar in anger and haste, not considering the fact that she had no money, no one to help her. For months she’d worked at any job she could find, usually being some lazy woman’s maid. By the time she had reached Boston, her advancing pregnancy had made even those jobs difficult to find.
Her daughter Miranda was born in a Catholic hospital for unwed mothers, and Linnet was urged to put the baby up for adoption. But Linnet looked into those blue eyes so like Devon’s and she knew she’d die before she parted with the child.
In the hospital, her luck seemed to change, for she read an ad in a newspaper that a man in Boston was looking for a schoolteacher in Kentucky. Linnet wanted to return to the wilderness, wanted to raise her daughter away from the city, away from people who might call her child ugly names.
Linnet applied to a man named Squire Talbot, and after six long days of waiting, she was given the job.
It didn’t take her long to realize what a mistake she’d made. “The Squire,” as he wanted to be called, had found out that her story of being a widow was a lie and he assumed she was an easy woman. Once, on the trail into Kentucky, Linnet applied a heavy skillet to the Squire’s head, and the man began to get the message.
But Linnet had made an enemy.
The Squire stayed away from her, but his pride was hurt and he wanted revenge. He introduced her to the people of Spring Lick as Mrs. Tyler, widow, but within days they knew Miranda was an illegitimate child, and Linnet knew the Squire had told them the truth.
The people of Spring Lick were narrow-minded gossips who used religion to back up whatever they wanted. At first the men of the town had seemed to expect favors from Linnet, but she’d been able to repulse them—and made more enemies. The women hated her because she tempted their husbands, and the men thought she should give them what they wanted because she’d obviously given it to some other man.
Now Linnet tried to save every penny she made at teaching so she and Miranda could soon leave the town, where she had only one friend—Nettie Waters.
“Miranda’s growing quickly, isn’t she, Linnet?” Jule Yarnall asked from across the quilting frame. “Tell us, does she look like your family or your…husband’s?”
Linnet didn’t look at the woman. “She looks like my husband. At least she has his eyes. His hair was much darker, though.”
The door burst open before the women could really get started, and a pretty woman entered, her clothes faded but clean and showing her good figure. “Linnet, I just got some wax goin’ for some candles and I wondered if you’d help me with the molds.”
Jule protested. “Can’t Vaida or Rebekah help you, Nettie? They seem perfectly capable girls, or maybe they’re busy at other things?”
Nettie gave her a deadly smile but no answer and then turned back in question to Linnet.
Linnet smiled gratefully. “I’ll be glad to help.” She hastily put her sewing scissors, needle and thread in the little reed basket, before bending and scooping up Miranda. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said when they were outside.
“I figured now’d be a good time to rescue you since they’ve had enough time to finish with me and my family and it’s about time to start on you and Miranda.”
Linnet had to laugh at Nettie’s correctness. Miranda pushed away from her mother and wanted to get down. Linnet held the little hand, and the two women slowed their pace for the child.
“This sure is a beautiful spring,” Nettie said. “Nice time for a weddin’.” She looked shrewdly at Linnet. “When’s the Squire gettin’ back?”
“I’m not sure.” Linnet avoided her friend’s eyes.
“I guess you know he’s spreadin’ around hints that Miranda’s his, don’t you?” Nettie said quietly.
“No!” Linnet gasped. “Even he—”
“I wouldn’t put anythin’ past him. You’ve hurt his pride. Speak of the devil, look who’s comin’.”
Approaching them was a tall, gray-haired man on a horse. He carried himself well and looked younger than his fifty years, his shoulders back, his stomach sucked in. He was a man used to getting what he wanted out of life, and Linnet suspected that her major appeal to him was her refusal of him.
The Squire stopped his horse before the two women, his brown eyes smiling down at Linnet for a moment before he even saw Nettie and the baby. He tipped his hat. “Hello, Nettie. Everything all right at your house?”
“Just fine, Squire,” she answered. “Ottis wants you to come by and look at some new corn seed he bought from some trapper. I don’t think it’s worth much, but Ottis seems to think each seed’s gonna grow a stalk of corn that’ll take four men to carry.”
The Squire chuckled. “I’ll have to go by today and see the seeds. I wouldn’t want to miss anything like that. Is there no school today, Linnet?” He smiled down at her.
“There will be this afternoon. Everyone begged so to have this morning off that I couldn’t resist the chance to play hooky myself.”
“You’re too easy on the children, Linnet,” he said seriously.
Nettie made a little noise in her throat. “How she handles them kids of the Gathers is beyond me. You know, Squire, you ought to speak to Butch. If he’d stay away from that store a little more and have a little say in them kids of his, they’d be a lot better off.”
The Squire dismounted his horse, standing close to Linnet. “Nettie, you’re sounding more and more like Jule. She says I ought to do something with your oldest daughter.”
“Ain’t nothin’ wrong with Vaida and you know it. They’re just jealous ’cause she’s prettier’n any of their kids.”
“Be that as it may, I still have to listen to all complaints. If Linnet has any complaints about the discipline of the schoolchildren, I’ll have to step in, but until then—” He broke off and the
y both stared at Linnet, expecting an answer.
“No,” she said quietly. “I have no complaints. I must go back to the school now. I have some lessons to get ready before the children arrive.” She knelt and hugged her daughter, who grinned happily at Linnet. “I have to go to school now, Miranda, so you go to Aunt Nettie and be good, will you?”
Miranda gurgled an incoherent answer to her mother and readily went to Nettie.
“I’ll walk with you,” the Squire said as he took her arm.
“Did you have a pleasant trip?” Linnet asked when they were alone.
“Yes.” He looked into her eyes, a deep, rich gray. “But I was anxious to return home. Did you have any more unpleasantness from Jule or Ova?”
“Very little.” She smiled. “I must go now,” she said at the door of the little schoolhouse.
“I’ll just come in with you and—”
“No!” she interrupted.
He stepped away. “I guess you’re right. Wise, sensible Linnet. Of course, you owe me nothing for taking you and your child out of Boston. Oh well,” he said when he got no response from her. “That’s past history. I do have a lot of work to do today. May I see you tonight?”
Linnet turned and fled inside the school without answering. Her first action was to slam the big dictionary on the desk with her fist. The Squire! Everyone adored and worshipped him, went to him to ask his permission for anything they planned to do. Spring Lick was even called the Squire’s town, the way Sweetbriar was Devon’s town. But what a difference! Devon loved the people of Sweetbriar but the Squire collected people. He always did things for people, lots of things, and he always refused to be paid for his deeds, refused to ever ask any help from anyone.
For a while Linnet had tried to get along with him and he’d come to supper with her and Miranda a few times, but soon Jule and Ova had come to talk to her “for her own good.” They said it didn’t look good for her to have a man in her house each night like that, that people were bound to talk, not that they, of course, ever would, but there were some people a lot less Christian and charitable than they were.
At first Linnet had been stunned by the people of Spring Lick’s attitudes, but she had grown to understand them, even to anticipate their reactions. The women very much liked having a handsome bachelor in their community and they didn’t like a single woman around. So Linnet had to bear many snide comments. Spring Lick was four times as big as Sweetbriar, yet she’d had more real friends in the smaller town than she could find in all the population of the larger settlement. Nettie was the only one who didn’t ask questions, who didn’t sometimes stare at Miranda as if she were a little odd or maybe a little dirty.
The thought of the children brought her mind back to the schoolroom. Her first experience with children had been on the trip to Kentucky with her parents. They were happy, honest children and she had loved them, like those in Sweetbriar. She thought of the carving of herself and Jessie Tucker on the mantel in her house, and wondered how much Jessie had changed in the past years, how much everyone had changed. Did any of them even remember her now?
She forced her mind away from her thoughts of Sweetbriar and back to Spring Lick. When the Squire had first given her the teaching job, she had been happy, but things were different now. As two towns could be so different, so could two groups of children. Whatever love she had given the children of Sweetbriar, they had returned several times, but that was far from the case of the children of Spring Lick. She felt sometimes that she could fall dead in the middle of the room and maybe, only maybe, the children would remember to step over the body.
They looked at her with vacant eyes. Nettie had said the Gather children were a problem but they were far from it. How she wished for a boy like Jessie who defied her or pulled the girls’ braids. Anything but those cold children who stared at her and didn’t seem to realize she was a human being. Once, at recess, she had heard Pearl Gather say, “She said to do it.” Linnet was stunned when she realized the girl had meant her, not Mrs. Tyler or even Teach or the old lady, nothing so personal. Even now, remembering, Linnet was stunned. It wasn’t the words but the girl’s tone.
She heard the children outside and when she opened the door, none of them looked at her.
Chapter Thirteen
“MIRANDA, WOULD YOU LIKE TO GO FOR A WALK?” Linnet asked her little daughter. The child awkwardly pushed herself up on her hands and knees, then stood, precariously, and walked to her mother’s arms. Linnet’s smile faded when she heard the knock on the door. She had hoped to be gone by the time the Squire arrived. “Hello,” she managed to say pleasantly. “Miranda and I are ready.”
The Squire ignored the child, as always. The little girl looked at him too seriously, her gaze too piercing for him to be really affectionate with her. Besides, it wouldn’t do for someone of the Squire’s class to touch a “tainted” child.
“The evening’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Linnet asked as she smelled the spring flowers, the new growth.
“Yes,” he said, his eyes on her.
“What happened in Danville?”
The Squire puffed his chest out visibly. “I think my speech really impressed them.” He gave her a sidelong look. “Thank you for helping me with it.”
“You’re welcome; I enjoyed doing it. So you think it’s fairly certain that you’ll get your wish to be governor?”
“Yes, I do, Linnet, and—” He broke off as Linnet went to retrieve Miranda from falling into a mud puddle. “Linnet, I—,” he began as he took her arm.
She pulled away from him as politely as possible. Too often his touches led to more than she wanted to endure.
He noticed her movement. “Let’s go back, shall we? It’s getting dark.”
The tall man walked into the store, eyeing it professionally.
“Can I help you?” The voice came from a hideously obese man, his little head set on top of several rolling chins, his shoulders and the rest of his body form lost in massive amounts of flesh. “You from around here?”
“No,” the man said. “I’m from Sweetbriar. I been thinkin’ of openin’ a new store up this way but I can see you already got me beat.”
The fat man showed pleasure at the compliment. “Name’s Butch Gather.” He held out a hand, the back and palm ballooned with short little digits protruding.
“Macalister, called Mac.” He shook the offered hand.
“You gonna stay ’round here?”
“Thought I might for a while, if I can find a room or someplace to stay.”
“I got a room out back if you can pay for it.”
Devon tossed a silver coin onto the counter.
Butch studied it, close to his little eye. “For silver, mister, I’d give you my room.”
Laughter came from behind Devon and he turned.
“Ova gets a taste of a real man, and you’d never get your bed back,” one of the three men said.
Butch gave a little smirk. “I ain’t heard her complainin’ when I done give her six kids.”
“Come over here, Mac, is it? Set a spell and tell us your news.”
Devon listened and talked with the four men for a long while before he heard a word about the new schoolteacher.
“Real purty little thing, and the Squire better lay claim to her real soon.”
“The Squire?” Devon asked. “I heard he was gonna try for governor when Kentucky gets to be a state.”
“You heard right.”
“And this schoolteacher is his wife?”
The man winked at Devon. “Not in front of a preacher she ain’t, if you know what I mean.”
Devon forced a smile. “I sure do.”
Linnet left the schoolhouse as soon as she could. She should go to Nettie’s house and get Miranda, she thought, but she really wanted some time alone. She walked into the woods, the shade cool and fragrant. She smiled and stretched, loving the solitude, the peacefulness.
“Hello, Linnet.”
She froze at the vo
ice she knew so well, then began trembling. Very slowly she turned and looked into the brilliant blue of Devon Macalister’s eyes.
She could only gape at him, incredulous that her heart pounded so hard, that she could not be so at ease as he seemed to be.
“You do remember me?” he asked, his eyes laughing.
“Yes,” she managed to whisper, working hard at controlling her breathing and calming her pulse.
“I was just travelin’ through,” he lied, “and I heard you was here so I thought I’d say hello. You look like Spring Lick agrees with you.” His eyes swept her body, remembering every detail.
Linnet put her chin into the air. “I have managed.”
“From what I’ve heard, you’ve done more than manage.” He leaned on a tree negligently, but Linnet saw a brief flash of anger cross his eyes.
How could he just stand there so easily? Why was her body still trembling? He sat down on the ground, cross-legged, and plucked a long blade of grass. She had forgotten how graceful he was, how he moved so fluidly, as if he were made of water under his skin rather than hard bones like other people. His hair was blacker than she remembered, but it curled exactly as it always had. She knew how it felt under her fingers.
“So tell me what you’ve been doin’ the last couple of years.”
She brought her eyes back to his. She must act as if she felt as little as he obviously did. “Oh, simple, really. I lived in Boston for a year and then here in Spring Lick for the other year. I’d much rather hear about Sweetbriar. How is Agnes?”
Devon smiled and she saw his strong, white teeth, looking even whiter against the dark skin that she could almost taste—Stop! she told herself.
“Agnes had another young’un, a little girl, not long after you left.” He watched her. “Named the baby Blanche.”
Linnet was startled “Blanche?”
“Yeah. Like in Linnet Blanche Tyler, I reckon. Only she didn’t ever say so in so many words.”
Linnet couldn’t help feeling pleased.
“And Esther’s expectin’ again,” he continued. “And Lester’s—oh, you don’t know Lester. Sweetbriar’s grown considerable since you left.”