be. It looked like a little castle made of gray stone. It had a turret on the north end and a turret on the south end. Oh, and there was a garden, too, a flower garden all around it. And the front doors were solid oak, of course. She knew oak by now. She could tell oak on sight. What else would those doors have been? Douglas fir? Tamara hobbled to the doors and they opened. An older lady in a black dress and a white apron, her dark hair hidden under a white mobcap, came bustling down the hallway toward her, wringing her hands.
“Lady Tamara, there you are. We thought you’d disappeared on us. You’re late,” the servant said. “Late for your own wedding.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I went for a walk and got lost. Am I dirty? Do I need to change?”
“Oh, no...” The servant stepped back, looked Tamara up and down and smiled. “You look so beautiful.”
“Is my lord angry with me for making him wait?”
“He would wait for you forever. You know that. But your guests are restless and your father’s pacing a hole in the rug.”
“Daddy’s here?”
“You think your own father would miss your wedding? Come along and see him. He’s waiting to give you away.”
“Take me there. Take me there right now. I didn’t know he was coming to the wedding.”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, he said. Not over his dead body.”
Tamara followed the servant down the hallway. She found she could walk again just fine, no pain. In fact, she could run, and run she did, almost skipping in her haste to see her father again. And there he was, handsome as she ever remembered seeing him, regal as a king with his dark wavy hair and his shining dark eyes and his dark, dark boots on his long strong legs wearing a hole in the red carpet from pacing.
“Daddy!” Tamara threw herself into his arms and he held her tight, so tight she could hardly breathe. But she didn’t need to breathe. She just needed her daddy on her wedding day.
“There’s my beautiful girl.” He rocked her against him.
“I didn’t think you’d come.”
“I came, angel. I couldn’t let you get married without me.” He pulled back and held her by the shoulders. “You look so beautiful.”
She looked down at herself again. He was right. She did look beautiful. She saw her reflection in the mirror across the hall. The dress shimmered like a full moon on a clear night, a sort of silvery white color she’d only ever seen in her dreams. And her red hair lay in thick waves down her back. A white veil covered her hair, and when it was time to walk down the aisle, it would conceal her face as well, only to be uncovered by her husband once he became her husband.
“I didn’t mean to keep you waiting,” she said. “I was...” She stopped. “I don’t remember. I was walking, and I don’t remember.”
“You’re here. That’s all that matters. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she said. “If you’re ready, I am.”
“You love him?” Daddy asked. He looked so handsome in his knee boots polished to a mirror shine and his black trousers and black jacket and cravat.
“I will love him all my life.”
“Then yes, I’m ready.” Her father grinned broadly as he lowered the veil down over her face. Then he nodded to a footman, who opened the door. The music she’d heard—it came from here, from this ballroom. A string quartet—two violins, viola, cello—played a soft wedding march, and for a moment it was drowned out by the shuffle of feet as the many guests in their fripperies and finery turned to look at Julien St. Croix’s young bride on her handsome father’s arm.
Oh, how they sighed at the sight of them. She heard the sighs, although she couldn’t see their faces. The veil obscured her sight so all she saw were shadows.
“I can’t see, Daddy. Don’t let me fall.”
“Never, my angel.”
“Is it true? Is the man I’m marrying the son of a count?”
“A baron, my love. He’s a baron. Only the best for you.”
“Wasn’t Granddaddy a baron?”
Her father didn’t answer. Maybe he hadn’t heard her over the music. On her father’s arm Tamara took halting steps toward the end of the aisle where her groom waited for her.
Her father stopped and she stopped. They were there.
“Be a good girl for your husband,” her father whispered in her ear, then kissed her cheek through the veil.
It was time. Her veil was raised, and she smiled at the man who would be her husband.
The smile left her face.
“Levi?”
“You look beautiful, Rotten.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I can’t marry you. I hate you.”
“That’s not a very nice thing to say to your husband.”
“I won’t marry you. I’ll never marry you.”
“It’s too late,” he said. “We’re already married.”
“How? I don’t... When?” Tamara looked around the room, scanning faces, looking for friends, for her father, who had gone.
“No wedding necessary,” came a voice from behind her. Tamara spun around and a woman in a red dress stepped out from the crowd of guests. “You’re already his. Blood of his blood. Bone of his bone.”
“Momma?”
“You’re bought and paid for,” Levi said over her shoulder. “You’re all mine.”
“No.” She shook her head. “You can’t sell people. You can’t sell people anymore.”
“Of course you can,” Levi said, grinning the devilish grin that she used to love and now she hated. “We do it all the time.”
“You sold me, Momma...” She stared at her mother grinning in all her triumph and glory. “Why did you sell me?”
“What else is a girl good for?” her mother asked. “It’s all I was good for, anyway.”
“A girl is good for leaving,” Tamara said, looking around at the blank faces staring at her as if she’d come from another planet. “And a girl is good for burning your house down.”
Tamara pushed a rack of candles over and the red rug she’d walked across caught fire.
Before anyone could stop her, she ran from the room, from the house, from her wedding, from her mother and the husband she should never have married.
She ran out into the garden and saw the house all in flames, beautiful marvelous flames.
“This is what a girl is good for,” she said, smiling. She found a stone bench out in the garden and sat down on it to watch the house burn. It caught fire so easily it was like the very walls were whiskey-soaked. The masonry turned a bright yellow and red and crumbled before her eyes into soft gray ash. The chimney tumbled off the roof. The red velvet curtains fluttered with flames and rolled up like scrolls as they burned. The sounds were like those of a rock slide as the house consumed itself and fell to pieces like a child’s tower of blocks that had been built so high there was nowhere else to go but down, down, down...
It would take a long while to burn out. She should rest. It had been such a long day. She lay on her side on the stone garden bench and closed her eyes. She’d sleep here, and then when she’d rested, she would walk on again until she found a new home. A light rain started to fall; she felt it on her face but ignored it. The house was already nothing but a pile of smoldering bricks, everyone inside dead and gone. A little rain wouldn’t help and it wouldn’t hurt. And she was very thirsty. She rolled onto her back and opened her mouth. Water flooded it and she choked.
“Sit up, Tamara. Come on.”
She felt a strong arm under her, forcing her into a sitting position.
“I’m sleeping.”
“Don’t sleep. You won’t wake up. Come on.”
She swallowed the water in her mouth and wanted more of it, enough to open her eyes.
A man was kneeling on the hard ground in front of her. She recognized the face, although she couldn’t quite place him.
“I know you,” she said.
“You better know me,” he said. “We’re married.”
br /> “Didn’t I burn you?”
“You sure tried, Rotten.”
Rotten...as soon as he said the word she knew him.
“Levi.”
“That’s me. You know who you are?” he asked, raising a glass bottle to her lips again. She tried to take it from his hands but found her own hands shook too hard to hold it.
“Let me do it. You can’t even hold your hands up.”
“I can do it.” Her voice sounded faded and frayed to her ears. She held the bottle still just to prove she could and took long deep sips from it. Slowly she returned to herself, feeling like she’d been wrenched out of a dream and wasn’t quite sure yet what was real and what had been the dream.
“Levi,” she said, setting the bottle on the stone bench beside her. Except it wasn’t a bench, only a slab of rock.
“That’s my name. You know yours?”
“Tamara.”
“Tamara what?”
She met his eyes and saw anger in them, and behind the anger, fear.
“Maddox,” she said.
“Close enough.”
Tamara raised a hand to her head and made herself remember things she didn’t want to remember. Her name was Tamara Belle Maddox. She was seventeen years old. She was married to Levi Shelby. She wasn’t... No, she was definitely not married to Julien St. Croix. That had only been a dream.
“Tamara, do you have any idea how much you scared me?”
“I scared you? That’s funny.” She gave a little drunken laugh as if she’d been sucking down a bottle of bourbon instead of water.
“Do you know how long you’ve been gone?”
She shook her head.
“Two days, Tamara. Two entire days I’ve been out here with Bowen and White Dog trying to find you. Bowen went to get the police.”
“No. No police. They’ll call Momma.”
“I think that’s the least of our worries.”
“She’s the most of our worries.”
Tamara rubbed her forehead, where a knot of pain lived and throbbed behind her eyes.
“Two days, Tamara. Did you hear me? Two days you’ve been gone. You’re lucky you’re alive.”
She looked down at her body, her ankle, red and swollen, the cuts and scrapes on her legs from ankle to knee. Her hands were filthy, dirt under her fingernails and blood on her palms from catching her fall on a rock. Levi gently held a white handkerchief to her face and she saw it come away with blood.
“I am?”
“Tamara, are you all right?” Levi asked. He took her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes as if seeking out signs of damage.
“No.”
“I didn’t think so. Come on, let’s get you to the hospital.”
“I don’t need a hospital.”
“You just said—”
“I don’t need a hospital. I don’t need a doctor. I need...”
“What do you need? Tell me. I’ll get it for you.”
“I need you to not hate me.”
Levi’s head jerked back, and he narrowed his eyes at her.
“Why do you think I hate you?”
“Because you don’t care about me. You said so yourself.”
Levi sighed—heavily—and stood up. She didn’t like to be sitting when he stood. His size scared her. He could hurt her so easily if he wanted to—especially here in the middle of nowhere. Where was she, anyway? She glanced around, saw a clearing edged with oak trees, saw a line of black bricks, the remnant of a stone path.
“I care about you,” he said. His arms were crossed over his chest—his big arms, his broad chest.
“You said you know about Granddaddy, about him trying to have a son.”
“Yeah, I know. Bowen told me. Listen, Tamara, what your grandfather did to your mother was awful. It was. But it’s no excuse to clear-cut this entire island. I’ve heard of temper tantrums, but that just takes the cake.”
“What do you mean what my grandfather did to my mother?”
“Just what I said he did two days ago.” His brow furrowed and he looked at her again like she had a screw or two loose. Maybe she did. She was certain he’d said he knew and didn’t care that Granddaddy had tried to rape her and get her pregnant. But he hadn’t meant her. He meant Momma?
“What did my grandfather do to Momma?”
“I thought you knew. You acted like it.” He shrugged, sighed again. “Bowen says that’s why your daddy killed himself. He came home from a business trip and found your mother in bed with his own father, with my father.”
“Momma and Granddaddy?” Her mind was spinning.
Levi slowly nodded his head. “He wanted a baby boy apparently. He had three sons at the time—one dead, one not interested in having children and one with a black mother. So he was sleeping with your mother, trying to get her to have his baby so everyone would think it was Nash’s baby. Considering the kind of woman your mother has proved herself to be, I imagine she went along with this for the sake of staying in your grandfather’s good graces. And probably for money, too.”
Momma... He’d been talking about Momma. Her mother and her grandfather. That was what Levi knew about and didn’t care about.
“Tamara, you know I care about you. You know that, right?” Levi knelt in front of her again. He took her face in his hands. “You have to know that.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I married you to keep you from marrying some old geezer who’d use you and hurt you and treat you like his property. You seemed so determined and so...”
“Dumb?”
“Young.”
“I’m not as young as I look.”
“No, but you’re not as old as you think you are, either. I hate to put my foot down, but I’m going to have to do it if you try to sell this island to a timber company to spite your mother and your grandfather, who is rotting in his grave as we speak.”
“I wasn’t doing it just to spite them.”
“Then why? Why should I roll over and let you cut down every tree on this island? Because I don’t know about you, but I kind of like it here. This is the first place I’ve ever lived that felt like mine and felt like home. So if you want me to stand back and watch you destroy it, you better have a real good reason for it.”
“Daddy was going to do it.”
“No, Nash was not going to do it. Nash thought about doing it, and Bowen talked him out of it. Instead of selling the island, he decided to keep it and bring his daughter down here to live with him and—”
“And Bowen.”
Levi’s eyes flashed. “You know about that.”
“I know more than you think I know. I know more than you do.”
“Well, then, why don’t you just sit there and tell me every single thing you know that I don’t know. Do you think you could do that? Do you think you could tell your husband what the hell is going on with you? Because I am trying to be a good husband over here, Tamara. I am trying my hardest. In case the will doesn’t come out in our favor, I got a job. I’ve been saving money. I blew a big damn chunk of it to buy you that boy over there.” He pointed right at a tree where a black-and-white horse stood tied to it, whacking flies off his back with his tail.
Tamara sat up straight. “That’s my horse?”
“It is.”
She started to stand, but Levi grabbed her and pulled her back down again.