“Different mode of transportation.”
Levi pulled off his gloves and tossed them on the workbench. Bowen followed him out of the shop and to the truck. Behind the truck was a horse trailer. Inside the horse trailer was a horse.
“Aww...that’s real sweet,” Bowen said. “You got the missus a pony.”
“That is not a pony. That is a horse. A Tennessee Walker, and he was not cheap.”
“Handsome fellow. What’s his name?” Bowen asked, peering through the slats at the black-and-white pinto gelding.
“Rex. Unless Tamara wants to change it.”
“When you going to give him to her?”
“Right now.” Levi tipped the driver and opened the trailer. The driver handed him the saddle he’d bought along with the horse, an English saddle, used, well-worn and comfortable. Perfect for Tamara’s sweet ass, which hadn’t sat astride a horse in weeks. Levi couldn’t wait to turn up on horseback and surprise her. It was quitting time so Levi saddled Rex and rode off over the bridge toward home.
Home. He loved that word. Home had been a touch-and-go proposition growing up. Sometimes he and his mother had lived in boardinghouse rooms or in an apartment of their own. More often they lived with his grandfather or with Andre and Gloria. They never once owned a house of their own, only rented, only borrowed. Not even during Mom’s miserable two-year marriage to the man who’d made him a Shelby. These days nothing made Levi happier than saying he was “heading home” and knowing there was a home with a wife waiting for him.
Rex took direction well. He had a smooth rocking gait that even the most inexperienced horse rider could handle. Levi had picked him out because he was a pretty horse with a gentle temperament but big enough and strong enough Tamara wouldn’t be insulted. It wouldn’t take much more than a week to build a pen and put down some straw for Rex. Levi could take a couple days off work for that or do it in the evenings. Building a little shed for a stable might take longer, but the horse would do fine outside. The area by the house was shady and cool and Levi already had enough oats and hay to last Rex two weeks. Tamara would give him all the exercise he needed.
Levi led Rex down the narrow dirt road toward the house. He heard something he hadn’t expected to hear. A car or a truck. Some sort of engine starting. Rex shied at the sudden sound and Levi had to gentle him fast. The sound approached and Levi rode Rex into the woods and stopped under the heavy hanging branches of a tall oak. The truck rumbled past, a big diesel monster, and Levi read the words painted on the side—Athens Timber and Lumber, Athens, Georgia.
“What the hell?” Levi said, and Rex’s long black ears twitched in response. Levi tapped Rex’s sides and the Walker moseyed as fast as a Walker could mosey toward the house. They arrived in time to see Tamara disappear into the woods.
As dense as the trees were on this part of the island, Levi knew he had to follow her quick or he’d lose her. He tied up Rex to a tree branch and went running after her. He heard rustling sounds and tried to follow them, but the woods were a labyrinth and around every corner he feared the minotaur—another copperhead, a cougar, a hole he’d break his leg in. How many times had he told Tamara not to go out in the woods by herself?
Levi heard a twig crack and he turned toward the sound. He saw a glimpse of white and followed it all the way to the scrub grass and to the white sand of the beach. There she was, standing at the edge of the water in her white sundress and bare feet.
“Tamara!” He called out to her and she turned and waved at him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, all innocence.
He strode toward her, not an easy feat in soft shifting sand.
“What am I doing here? What are you doing here?”
“Nothing. Walking.”
“I came home to surprise you and saw a logging company truck driving down my road. What the hell is a logging company doing on our island?”
Tamara’s eyes flashed with surprise.
“You saw them?”
“I saw them. Now you answer me. What the hell is going on here?”
“Those trees are worth a fortune, Levi. You know that.”
“I know that. So?”
“So we can sell them for a fortune.”
“We could. We could do a lot of things. We could even sell our bodies on the streets or cut off our arms and legs and be circus freaks, but we’re not going to do it.”
“We’re going to inherit Arden, Red Thread, the whole thing. We don’t need this island.”
Levi glared at her, chin high and furious. He could have screamed or spit he was so angry.
“You sell this island to a fucking logging company over my dead body.”
Tamara pointed at the trees. “I’m selling it over my father’s dead body. He sold his soul for this island and he died here. You think I want to live here forever?”
“Maybe you don’t, but I do. Do you care about that?”
“I care about what I have to do.”
“I will stop you if it takes my last breath.” Levi turned away from her, too angry to look at her. He shook his head, kicked the sand. “Goddammit, what more do you want from life, Tamara? We have a house. We have each other. We have a whole fucking island that’s like paradise. We’re happy here. We have friends here—”
“That’s not what I’m here for.”
“What the hell are you here for, then?”
“I have a job to do, Levi.”
“There are only two people standing here and only one of the two has a job, so try another one on me.”
“I have to finish what I started the night of the flood.”
“Putting me in the loony bin? Is that the job you have to finish? You’re doing a real good job of it by the way.”
“I saved your life, Levi. You’re alive and going to be very rich because of me.”
“You did and I’m grateful. But I’m not so grateful I’m going to bend over and let you sell this island out from under me. I have never loved a place like I love this place.”
“Love it? It’s a swamp, Levi. It’s supposed to be a swamp. A man bought a little girl, married her and drained the swamp because he went nuts after she died. They kept slaves on this island. Where do you think I got the idea of cutting down the trees? It was Daddy’s idea. No trees, no Red Thread. That’s why he wanted the island from Granddaddy. Ask Bowen. Bowen’s the one who told me that.”
“He might have had the idea, but he didn’t do it.”
“Only because he killed himself. He was going to do it. He wanted to punish Granddaddy and this was the best way to do it. He wanted to make things right.”
“Make things right? Make things right? Tamara, you can’t make things right by cutting down hundreds of acres of trees.”
“If you know what kind of man Granddaddy was you would know.”
“Oh, I know what kind of man he was. The kind of man who’d fuck a girl over to get her pregnant just so he’d have a son of his own. That’s what kind of man he was. Don’t tell me I don’t know what kind of man he was. I know better than you do. Ask me if that matters? It doesn’t.”
Tamara’s eyes went huge, big as the sky.
“You know what Granddaddy did?”
“Of course I know. I’ve known a long time.”
“You knew and you didn’t tell me?”
“I know and I don’t care. Not one bit,” Levi said. Virginia Maddox had lost all his sympathy the day Tamara told him her mother had beaten her. From what Bowen had said, George Maddox hadn’t even forced her to sleep with him. She’d probably done it for the money.
“You know,” Tamara said again, her voice sounding so far away he barely heard. “And you don’t care.”
“I care about the island. I care about the trees. I care about the plan we made that you don’t seem to remember anymore because you’re so damn obsessed with getting back at your mother and your grandfather.”
“Your father,” she said. “Not my grandfather. Your father.” It
was the cruelest thing she could have said to him, and she’d said it.
Tamara turned away from him and stared at the ocean.
“Tamara—look at me.”
She took a step toward the water. Levi grabbed her by the arm, yanked her back, seized with a sudden fear she’d punish him by throwing herself in the ocean.
“Tamara.”
She looked up at him. All the fight had left her eyes. All the fight and all the fire. Gone. Tamara wasn’t home anymore.
“Tamara?”
She stepped away from him, and he released her arm.
“Tamara, where are you going? We aren’t done here.”
“We’re done here.”
She kept on walking.
“Tamara, don’t you dare—”
But she dared.
Levi ran after her and she stopped, raised her hand to warn him away. He stood two feet from her, panting in his fury and his fear.
“Tamara?”
“Leave me alone.”
24
Tamara wasn’t sure how long she’d been walking. A few hours? A few days? She didn’t know and she didn’t care. She cared as little about how long she’d been gone and where she was as Levi cared about what Granddaddy had done to her.
Not one bit.
How did Levi know? She hadn’t told anyone. Had her mother told him? Maybe they were in this together somehow. Maybe her mother had found Levi and told him to marry Tamara and keep an eye on her. Maybe Levi was her mother’s spy. That would make sense. Yes...her mother had paid Levi off. That was exactly what happened. Levi was in on the whole thing. Her mother had gotten to him first. Levi had married Tamara to inherit the money, then he would make sure she drowned in the ocean and he’d have everything and that was why he wanted to come down here to Bride Island. That was why he wanted the island so bad, because he was going to bury her on it and take the money.
Oh, they were good. What a good plan. She wished she’d thought of it first.
Tamara looked up. Even in the shade of the oak trees, the sun bore down ruthlessly on her head. Blisters coated her heels where they’d slid, sweaty, up and down against the backs of her shoes with every step. Every now and then one of those blisters would rupture and send liquid dripping down her ankle and into her shoe. Flies buzzed around her legs, seeking the blood and the blister fluid, and she let them have it.
She paused by a tree and caught her breath. Last night she’d slept on the beach. She knew that much. She knew a full night had passed since Levi told her he didn’t care, not one bit. When was the last time she’d drunk any water? Yesterday evening? Yes, in the house. The man from Athens Timber had come calling, and she’d served him tea while he’d gone over the numbers—when they’d start clear-cutting, how long it would take, how many acres they could clear in a week, how much money they’d offer her for the timber. It was more than she’d imagined. Then again, she hadn’t imagined any numbers because she wasn’t cutting the trees down for the money. The money meant nothing. The money was irrelevant.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” the lumber man had asked. He’d looked at her like a father looks at a daughter about to marry the wrong man. “I mean, you’ll never have to worry about money again if you do this, but we can take half the trees and replant if you like. You could still get rich and have a nice green island.”
“Take them,” she’d said. “Take them all.”
He’d said if that was what she wanted, they’d be more than happy to take them off her hands. He promised to send some paperwork to her post office box soon enough. The only sticking point was ownership of the island. No matter how much she’d told him the island was all hers, only hers, the lumber man wanted Levi to sign off on it, too. No court battles for him, he’d said. No, thank you. They’d had enough of those in their day. Tamara had said, “My husband will sign the contracts, I promise.” She’d been drinking tea at the time, the last drink of anything she’d had before walking away from Levi. The sun was about the same place in the sky as it was yesterday when the Athens lumber man had driven away. She was thirsty and she was tired. And she had an awful feeling the trees were working for her mother, too.
Tamara wanted to sit down, but the tiny voice in the back of her head warned that if she sat down, she’d stop moving. She’d stop moving forever. And that wasn’t good. She still had things to do. She couldn’t stop moving yet. After she finished what she’d started, she’d come back here and lie down in the forest and never move again. After.
But not yet.
She pressed her forehead against the trunk of the tree. The bark scratched at her skin. She rubbed her forehead and brushed an ant off her face.
“I’m tired,” she said. “I want to go home.”
Home. Did she even have a home? She couldn’t go back to the house she’d shared with Levi for almost two months. He knew Granddaddy had tried to rape her to get her pregnant and he didn’t care. How could he not care?
Arden wasn’t her home, either. Even if she inherited it, she couldn’t live there. Every night she spent in that house she dreamed of the flood, of Granddaddy, of what the flood saved her from, of what would have happened if it hadn’t. A house of horrors, that’s what Arden was. That place had been bought with blood money and she would not sleep there another night.
What she needed was a new house.
A new house all her own.
And somewhere out here, there was another house. Bowen had told her about it.
Tamara pushed off from the tree and started walking again. Her heart pounded in her ears. The blisters on her feet left her wincing with every step she took. She stepped over a tree root, but her foot couldn’t quite clear it, and she stumbled, landing hard on her right side.
She heard a horrible sound, a sort of low animal moaning, and realized it was coming from her.
Her arms shook as she dragged herself onto her hands and knees. Her weak ankle, which had never fully healed from the first time she’d sprained it, had twisted again. She’d torn something. She could feel the tear inside her leg.
“Momma...” she cried, forgetting in her confusion and her agony that she hated Virginia Maddox. Her chest heaved and she knew she was about to throw up. But if she did, that would be the end. No food. No water. She couldn’t lose another drop of water from her body.
Somewhere she heard music.
Music?
Grabbing hold of the tree root that had tripped her, Tamara slowly pulled herself to her feet. Her right ankle throbbed and she couldn’t put any weight on it. But she did find a thick branch and she used it as a walking stick, resting her weight on it as she stumbled forward through the woods and toward the music. Music meant people. People meant water. She’d find the people and drink some of their water, and then she’d head out again to find the house she knew was here somewhere on the island. She’d live in the house Julien St. Croix built for his little wife. She had died, hadn’t she? His wife, Louisa? St. Croix must have been so lonely without his wife. She knew she would be lonely on this island all by herself. She would find Julien and he would fall in love with her at first sight. He’d ask her to marry him, demand it even because men in those days didn’t ask, but took. No, no, no, she wouldn’t marry him. Not until he freed his slaves. Terrible man, he should know better than that. Terrible man, he should know you couldn’t sell people. She would make him let them go. And he would do it, too, because he loved her so very much—love at first sight. He would love her and she would love him, and when they fought, he would take her upstairs to the finest bedroom in their fine house and an hour later she would come downstairs smiling.
She couldn’t wait to meet him, her future husband. They’d have their wedding in the house. They could be married tonight even. And soon she’d have a son of her own. And they would name him Philip after the king.
Wouldn’t it be nice to be married to the son of a count? Even a third son of a count was better than no son of a count at all. Who would she be? Lady Tamar
a. That had a nice ring to it. Lady Tamara St. Croix, the countess of Bride Island.
It was going to be such a beautiful wedding.
Tamara looked down. How perfect. She already wore a white dress. Surely Julien wouldn’t mind she’d been married before. It wasn’t a real marriage, after all, she would tell him. Levi wasn’t her real husband. He was a spy hired by her mother. Julien would protect her from them both. That was why he’d planted all these trees on the island. They were all for her. The trees would protect the house from spies. No one could find the house through the trees. No one but her and only because she belonged here. Here with her husband.
“Oh, my...” Tamara breathed as she stepped into a clearing. There it was. The house. The house Julien St. Croix had built just for her. It was more beautiful than she’d even dared dream it would