James covered his head and groaned, but Joey wasn’t about to be deterred so easily.
“Come on, James! Grandma Bonnie said to tell you breakfast is ready.”
“Did she now?” James peeked out from under his covers.
Joey giggled. “Yes, she did. So, can you come now? I’m hungry.”
James blinked a couple times as if he were thinking it over. “I don’t know. How do I tell if I’m hungry?”
Joey put his hands on his face and shook his head as if he couldn’t believe that James truly didn’t know if he was hungry.
“You can tell if your stomach hurts or if it growls like a dog,” Joey said at last.
“Hmmm I suppose I am hungry, then. Maybe instead of hotcakes and eggs, I’ll eat the little boy waking me up so early in the morning!” James growled and peeked out of the covers.
Joey let out a squeal and hopped off the bed, but as he did, James threw back the covers and dove after him.
He grabbed the little boy and began to tickle him until Joey couldn’t get a word in edgewise for his laughing.
“Boys! Come and have your breakfast! Let’s not keep Lyla waiting.” Bonnie’s voice carried through the hall over Joey’s squealing.
James laughed and set Joey down. “We’re going to leave a bad impression. You didn’t tell me that Lyla was here.”
Joey giggled and tried to straighten his wild blonde hair.
“Go on ahead, I’ll be right there.” James watched Joey disappear into the kitchen and then turned to get dressed.
He was glad he had found out that Lyla was already in the kitchen before going out in his long johns.
He hadn’t expected to see her for breakfast, since she had gotten up so late the day before.
A smile touched his lips. The look on her face when she had burst from her cabin and ran into Joey had been priceless.
This time, when he walked into the kitchen, Lyla looked as if she’d been awake for hours.
Her hair was neatly combed, and she had on a fresh new dress he hadn’t seen before. She was helping Bonnie set things out on the table.
They had prepared hotcakes, fried eggs, and salted pork. There were slices of apples from the apple tree in the yard, fresh milk and butter, and steaming cups of coffee all waiting to be enjoyed.
Once James and Joey had sat down, Lyla and Bonnie took their places and they all joined hands.
James said grace, then began to pass the plates around the table for everyone to dish themselves up.
“So, Ma, could Joey stay here with you while Lyla and I go out a little while later?” James gave his mother a serious look, hoping that she understood what he was trying to say.
While Joey seemed to have adjusted well to his parents’ absence, James didn’t exactly want to remind him of it by taking him to see their graves.
“Certainly, the two of you may go and don’t worry about anything here. I’m sure Joey and I will have plenty of fun. We may even make some berry pies.”
“Really? I love berry pies!” Joey exclaimed.
“Thank you,” Lyla said softly.
She looked bothered and nervous, and James made a mental note to ask her if she still wanted to see her sister’s grave. Maybe she had decided that it would be too difficult and sad for her.
It had been months before James had been able to visit Alice’s grave without being a mess afterwards.
He would go days without eating or sleeping. All he would do was think of Alice, asking himself if there was something that he could have done differently to save her life.
Everyone had told him how he had done the best he could and how he had been so strong. But he hadn’t done good enough and he hadn’t been strong enough, and that tore him up inside.
James practically choked on a bite of hotcake. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to think of those days.
Getting to a point where he could function again and enjoy the basics of life had been one of the hardest things he had ever done.
James looked over at Joey. The little blonde-haired boy had been the thing that had finally pulled him out of the dark hole and given him hope that life could be good again.
In the past few months, he hadn’t been tempted to visit
Alice’s’ grave once, and he hadn’t spent even one evening drinking himself into oblivion. Joey would probably never know it, but he had saved James from a life of sadness and bitterness.
James looked at Lyla. He only hoped that she wouldn’t throw him right back into the life that he had barely escaped.
Chapter 17
“Come on, no one will find out,” Frank’s voice was more demanding than pleading.
Lyla backed up. Her evenings with Frank had been ending in her bedroom more and more. Each night, he became increasingly forceful about what he wanted.
Lyla knew he had said that whenever she was ready, but if he meant it, why did he keep asking?
“I really don’t think we should.” Lyla had used the same excuse every other night, but this time, it didn’t seem to work the same.
“Look, Lyla. I want to marry you, I really do. But I don’t think you’re very committed to me.” Frank turned and stared out the window.
Lyla’s heart beat hard in her chest. What was Frank saying?
“Of course, I’m committed to you. I’m ready to be your wife.”
“Well, then, show it.” Frank turned and took her by the arms. “Why don’t you want to take the next step? Marriage is just to show everyone else that we are together. What is between us won’t change.”
Lyla hesitated. Should she do what he wanted? Could she? Maybe everything her father had said was wrong, maybe this wouldn’t really hurt.
After all, if they were going to get married, it didn’t really make a difference.
Lyla let him lead her to the bed, her heart pounding and her head screaming at her that what she was about to do was wrong. But she let herself go, because she didn’t want to lose Frank.
She didn’t want to lose the family she had already built in her heart.
---*---
The next morning, Lyla felt a strange mix of guilt and happiness. Surely now, Frank would know just how committed she was and how much she loved him. It had felt nice. He was strong and handsome, and she had enjoyed the physical pleasure.
Lyla grinned up at the roof above her bed. Who would have thought? She already was with the love of her life, planning to get married.
Giggling, Lyla hurried to get dressed. She and Frank had agreed to meet that afternoon and Lyla could hardly wait.
She rushed through the day, unable to focus on anything, her mind dreaming up situations that she would enjoy with Frank when they got together once again.
When she’d finally finished all of her chores and managed to slip away from her parents, she waited behind the butcher shop where she had agreed to meet Frank.
She began to pace as the minutes passed and he didn’t show up. They had agreed on dusk, and now, it was getting dark.
Lyla felt a nervousness gnawing on her insides. Where was Frank? Why was he late?
After waiting for more than two hours, Lyla headed back home, dejected. Maybe he had forgotten, or maybe he’d gotten busy with something else. That had to be it.
Deciding to wait until the next day to try again, Lyla tried to convince herself that everything was alright. But it wasn’t.
Frank didn’t show up the next day, or the day after that. Once Lyla realized that either something had happened to him or he was avoiding her, she began to look for him.
But his friends and the people around town hadn’t seen him since the night that he and Lyla had gone too far.
Lyla began to feel the weight of what she had done, and it began to push her heart down. How could she have been so naïve? So silly? She had given her heart and her body to a man, and now he was gone.
With nowhere else to turn, she found herself on her sister’s doorstep.
“Lyla, w
hat are you doing here?” Mary looked at her with concern.
“I-Can we talk for a moment?” Lyla asked, peering around Mary to see if Henry was home.
“Henry’s not here. He went out to get some things from town. Of course, we can talk. Come in. What’s wrong?”
Lyla wasn’t able to sit down, so she began pacing back and forth across her sister’s parlor.
“Have you seen Frank recently?” Lyla asked, pausing her pacing for a moment.
“What do you mean? I guess I haven’t, really. Haven’t the two of you been seeing each other?”
“Yes, but the other night, something happened, and we were supposed to meet each other the next day but he didn’t show up and I haven’t seen him since.” Lyla’s voice had an almost panicked note to it and a tear escaped her eye as she finished her outburst.
“I don’t understand. What happened?” Mary came over to her and placed her hands on Lyla’s arms.
“I…he kept saying we were going to get married. I told him we should wait but he said if I really loved him then I should—” Lyla burst into tears as a look of understanding crossed her sister’s face.
“Oh, Lyla.” Mary stroked her hair and rocked her back and forth.
Lyla grimly remembered that day that seemed so long ago. She had realized that Frank wasn’t coming back in that moment, as her sister held her while she sobbed.
Her sister may have been the only one to know of her indiscretion, but she hadn’t been the only one to see the results of it.
Lyla had been devastated. She had gone from being the happiest girl in the world to having everything she had counted on tumble down around her.
“What are you thinking about?” James’ voice pulled her back to the present. They were walking through a wooded area, apparently to where her sister was buried.
“Nothing important. Just of memories of being with my sister.” It wasn’t a complete lie. If it hadn’t been for her sister, Lyla would never have made it through what had come next.
Despite knowing that Frank had left her, it had taken weeks for Lyla to really give up hope that he would return and take her to the altar.
She had showed up at the butcher shop every day at dusk to wait, just in case Frank showed up with an explanation, but he never did.
“It seems important. You haven’t barely said a word since we left the house.”
Lyla shook her head a little and tried to concentrate on the moment. “Did you bury my sister? Was there a proper funeral?” Lyla wasn’t sure why those things mattered.
After all, everyone in this town had been a stranger to her sister—but then, a funeral by strangers seemed better than no funeral at all.
“I did attend the funeral. I can’t lie to you, though. It was a small affair. Only the reverend and a handful of people from town. Nobody around here even knew them.”
Lyla nodded, “I understand. You know, when we were children, we used to talk about our funerals.”
“That’s an odd thing for little girls to talk about.” James gave an amused smile.
“I know, but I guess we were slightly odd, then. We always said that whoever lived longer would write a eulogy for the other. We talked about what kind of dress we would wear and what would happen after we were buried, and whether or not it would rain.”
“It did.” James nodded solemnly.
“It did what?”
“It rained. On the day we buried your sister and her husband, it rained.”
Lyla felt peace in her heart. “She always said it would.”
“It will get better. You’ll never miss her less or feel less guilty for not being there, but as time passes, you’ll learn how to go on a little easier.”
“Thank you.” Lyla wasn’t convinced.
Her heart physically hurt, and she felt as if everything in the world had been uprooted.
She hadn’t seen her sister for seven years. She had somehow felt as if she would never see Mary again, but she had also had a feeling that her sister was always out there, somewhere.
Now that feeling, that reassurance, was gone.
“I always thought that I would die first.”
“Why would you think that? Aren’t you younger than she was?” James raised an eyebrow in surprise.
“My parents liked her better. She was always so perfect, doing everything right. I suppose I always figured that since I messed up so much, she just deserved to live longer.” Lyla paused a moment. “I guess I also wanted to die first. I never wanted to deal with the pain of losing her.”
“I can understand that. If I could have traded places with my father or with Alice, I would have in a heartbeat.” For a moment, James looked as if he wanted to break down, but pulled himself together.
“I’m sorry, I wonder how God chooses who should go and when? Does anything we do really have to do with how we die? Or is it a moment set in time that can’t be moved?”
James looked surprised at her line of questioning. “I really never thought of it that way, but those are good questions.”
He had stopped walking and motioned in front of him. “Here we are.”
It was a small, square-shaped clearing with a rustic wooden fence surrounding it.
There were medium-sized stones and crosses placed in even rows. From their spacing, it wasn’t hard to see that this was a small graveyard.
“We are actually above the church. If we go down that path there, we’d reach it in about twenty minutes.”
“So, which ones are theirs? My sister’s and her husband’s?” Lyla looked for any sign of names, but the ones she did see, she didn’t recognize.
“This way.” James took her hand before she could protest and led her to the corner of the yard.
There were two crosses that appeared to have been made of fresh wood.
“It was raining, so we never put their names on the crosses.” James shrugged apologetically. “I have my knife. If you would like, I can carve them in now.”
Lyla nodded and watched as he knelt in front of the first cross. “What did you say their names were?”
“Mary and Henry Henderson.” Lyla said the names with reverence.
She watched as James carved the names into the crosses with smooth, even strokes.
“Thank you,” Lyla said softly when James finally stood to inspect his work.
“No problem. You know, even though they are laid to rest and will never come back to this Earth, a piece of them is left in everyone they ever touched and everyone they ever spoke to—especially in you and in Joey.”
“I know.” Lyla fought the urge to cry. “I just miss her. The world feels so empty without her. She always asked me to come visit in her letters, but I never did. If I would have, maybe things would be different.”
Lyla would never forgive herself for that. She should have come. She should have left her miseries and her hardships in the city and moved out west to be with her sister. But now, it was too late, and she would never know what could have been.
A Treasure Brought by Fate: A Historical Western Romance Book Page 13
