The Brightest Day: A Juneteenth Historical Romance Anthology

by Alexander, Kianna

  He clasped his arm around her waist. “Now, isn’t that nice?”

  She turned to him with smiling eyes. Nice didn’t even begin to cover it.

  That day more than a decade ago, she experienced her first taste of freedom, and her very soul had soared on the wings of joy.

  And she knew that being with him would show her an even sweeter freedom: the freedom of pure, unabashed love.

  ~~~

  March, 1876

  Rosaline stood near the back door of her cabin, looking out on the small yard behind the house. The two coal black puppies seemed to be having a lovely time wrestling. Will had brought them home at the end of February, less than two weeks ago. She’d named the two female pups Sugar and Spice. Sugar was solid black, while Spice possessed a light brown streak running down her snout. She had no idea what breed they were, and she didn’t much care- she’d loved them on sight.

  At present, the pups were tangled up together in their pen, looking like a single ball of dark fluff as they rolled around on the wood chips covering the floor. A smile lifted the corners of her mouth as she watched their play.

  Will appeared soundlessly behind her, draping his arms around her waist.

  Though she hadn’t heard his approach over the pups’ squeals, she did smell the scent of fresh cut timber and linseed oil that always accompanied him.

  “Evenin’, my love. Enjoying the dogs, I see.” The deep timbre of his voice overrode her thoughts.

  She leaned into the warmth of her husband’s solid chest and sighed. “They’re so cute. Thank you for bringing them home.”

  He placed a soft kiss against the hollow of her neck. “Earl’s dog had pups, and I knew you’d want at least one.”

  She sighed, relishing his embrace. He knows me so well. She was a simple woman with simple dreams, and he seemed to know them all. “When do you think we can get away to visit the orphanage in Raleigh?”

  Behind her, he shrugged. “I can do it sometime next week. As soon as we complete the repairs on The Regal Lady, I can turn things over to Earl and Bret for a while. But don’t you have sweets to attend to?”

  She nodded. “Mrs. Goodman has commissioned me to make a strawberry shortcake for her church’s Ladies’ Auxiliary. I’ll deliver it to the church on Thursday.”

  His warm breath touched her bared shoulders as he spoke. “Then we’ll make the trip on Monday. Is that agreeable?”

  “It is.” Their marriage was still young, but they both possessed a strong desire for a child or two to complete their family. Since she knew the process of adopting a youngster might take quite some time, they were looking into their options now.

  “If things go as planned, we’ll certainly have our hands full. Two businesses, the pups, and a babe or two…”

  “I know. But it will be a beautiful chaos, I’m certain of it.”

  “I admire your outlook, my dear. And I agree. Together, we can conquer anything.”

  She turned in the circle of his arms to smile up at him. When they’d married on the shore of the river on the first day of the New Year, she’d known he would bring her joy like she’d never experienced before. Now, in the thick of that joy, she whispered, “I love you, Will Pruett.”

  “And I love you, Rosaline Pruett.” He bent his head to gift her with a kiss so potent, her knees went as soft as melted butter.

  When the kiss ended, she met his eyes with a wicked smile. “Then come to the bedroom and show me how you feel.”

  So he lifted her up into his strong arms, brought her inside the house, and kicked the door shut with the toe of his boot.

  About the Author

  Like any good Southern belle, Kianna Alexander wears many hats: loving wife, doting mama, advice-dispensing sister, and gabbing girlfriend. She’s a voracious reader, an amateur seamstress and occasional painter in oils. Chocolate, American history, sweet tea, and Idris Elba are a few of her favorite things. A native of the TarHeel state, Kianna still lives there with her husband, two kids, and a collection of well-loved vintage 80’s Barbie dolls.

  www.AuthorKiannaAlexander.com

  Facebook.com/KiannaWrites

  Twitter.com/KiannaWrites

  A Sweet Way to Freedom

  Piper Huguley

  When Arlo Tucker stepped foot into the holier-than-thou Georgia hamlet of Winslow, all he wanted to do was profit from those who might want to have a drink in his good-time place. He did not imagine that, in their mutual loneliness, he would get all tied up with the new schoolteacher Missouri Baxter. He had a run of bad luck with women. They had some fun, but he surely didn’t mean to get her caught up in the family way.

  In 1910, schoolteacher Missouri Baxter will not go back to her home town with a big belly all by herself. Arlo needs to come with her—as her husband. With God on her side, she’s got nine months to teach a most reluctant student an important lesson about what marriage meant to their people and show him “A Sweet Way to Freedom.”

  CONTENTS

  Dedication

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Dedication

  To George Claiborne Holt 1925 (?)–1980

  Gingerbread Man, here’s a happy ending just for you.

  Acknowledgements

  I could not have pulled off this one without the help of two historical romance superstars, Evangeline Holland and Kaiaia Alderson-Tyson. You guys rock. Thank you so very, very much.

  Chapter 1

  1910

  Winslow, Georgia

  Schoolteacher Miss Missouri Baxter wouldn’t say a word about who caused her belly to get bigger and bigger in front of the eyes of the Negro schoolchildren of Winslow, but everyone knew who it was.

  Arlo Tucker.

  “We going to get us a cousin,” Missy heard the Bledsoe girls whisper to each other when they saw their schoolteacher starting to look like she had swallowed a watermelon.

  She thought she could make it through the last days of school in May—just before school let out for the children to pick cotton. She didn’t. She had to purchase a new shirtwaist to be let out to accommodate her burden. And she knew someone in this small town would want to know why she needed a new, and bigger, shirtwaist.

  The moment had come, just as she was sweeping the front porch of the school to end the day. Missy had dreaded this day by turns, ever since she realized her shameful predicament. So she really wasn’t surprised when Mrs. Lona Bledsoe had come to see her. She would be the one they put forward, in her capacity as the Sunday school superintendent, mother of the Bledsoe girls, and overall town know-it-all. On top of all of that, Mrs. Bledsoe was Arlo’s older sister. Surely the town thought she would do something to fix the horrible situation Missy found herself in.

  The heavily rotund woman, further along with child than she was, headed straight down the red dust track woven through the pine trees. Mrs. Bledsoe aimed her body right toward Missy and her broom with focused intent and purpose as the school day came to an end. Missy had been dreading this day, and this particular conversation. She could almost imagine in her mind what Mrs. Bledsoe was going to say. She had said everything to herself and went over it in her mind all the time. Maybe one time it would make sense to her.

  For instance, as the head of the teacher committee, Mrs. Bledsoe had been reassured that graduates from Milford College were of the highest quality and character. Which was true. Milford College was the finest normal school for Negroes in all of Georgia. Missy had been their top graduate two years ago.

  What was the first thing that the top graduate from the best normal school for Negroes did? Fall in a bad way. With slow-smiling, long-legged, high-yellow Arlo. The smoothest man she
had ever met. What happened to that strong moral character? And no, it did not matter that they were Negroes. Just because white people called them terrible names like jungle bunnies all the time didn’t mean they had to act like it. Didn’t she know Winslow was a Christian place? And what of Arlo?

  Missy continued sweeping the front porch of the school to look busy. So many questions: What had they been up to just last fall? Why, she had just gotten there! And now that she was showing her burden, folks said, Miss Baxter was just as full of child. Why, there was even a money game going around as to when the babies would come. Like a competition.

  Missy stopped sweeping to see the other woman’s freezing gaze sweep over her, and let her look at her full on. She steeled herself. Inside she quailed, angry at herself, but she stood firm. She could understand—to a point. They looked about the same size and might give birth at about the same time. Scandal. And Mrs. Bledsoe was the married lady. Missy had gotten word from Doris Bomead who, when Missy first came, was willing to tell her anything about Lona Bledsoe, who couldn’t “hold a boy.”

  Old Mrs. Bomead’s words about Arlo’s sister rang in her ears. Who knew if Lona would get a chance again? Lona was a cursed woman since everyone knew it was a curse to be a Negro woman in this world. Who would wish that on anyone, and yet Lona had been blessed with four surviving daughters. What would she ever do with five? And her two dead baby boys. A shame before the Lord.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Bledsoe. How about a seat?” May in Georgia was when things began to get really hot. Mrs. Bledsoe lowered herself onto one of the rocking chairs on the school porch.

  Just as Mrs. Bledsoe got comfortable and ready to open her mouth, Missy rang the bell. Fifteen pairs of feet scurried down the steps of the schoolhouse and ran off through the pine woods surrounding the school in all directions.

  One pair of feet led the rest. Ruby’s. The rebellious girl had tucked up her white dress creating pants out of them at the end of the day not knowing her mother was on the front porch. Missy’s heart went out to the dear girl.

  “Ruby Jean,” Mrs. Bledsoe called out to the thirteen year old, her eldest daughter. Missy gripped the broom handle, hoping she hadn’t made trouble for Ruby. “Take your dress out of there. Can’t make a dress into pants. You the one graduating. Can’t you see you need to be an example for the rest of the children?”

  Ruby made slow deliberate movements to obey her mother. “I see it, but I don’t like it. We should all wear overalls to school.”

  “That’s perfectly ridiculous,” ten-year-old Nettie told her. Nettie, who was on her roll as Garnet, tended to have a weak constitution, so Missy indulged her more often than the others. It made Missy’s heart beat fast to think of Nettie, joining her brothers in the graveyard. No child’s life was guaranteed in this world.

  “Mags,” Lona called to eleven-year-old Mags, and Missy knew why. Mags, who was really Margaret, was as steady as the day was long. “Get your sisters home. Eat your snacks and do your chores. I’ll be home soon after I have a nice talk with Miss Baxter here.”

  No point in putting off the inevitable. Missy sighed as she put up the broom. “Maybe we should go inside where it is cooler, ma’am.”

  Back home in Milford, it was no disgrace to have a baby and not have an Isaac Baxter-created wedding ring. Everyone loved babies back home. Every child, every time one came into the world, was a cause for a celebration, and merited a picnic or a barn dance at least. And if it happened before a young woman had that ring, why, that was no problem. They would be rounded up to marry beneath the big tree on the school green and then there would be another picnic.

  The college formed the main industry of the her home town. Milford, Georgia was a place where you were expected to find your life’s partner, find a vocation to uplift the race, and begin to plan a family that would do the race proud.

  There was only one problem with that.

  No one was expecting her to fall with a baby.

  Missouri was the shining light, the pride of the Baxters. Her cousin, March Lewis, who also happened to be the women’s principal of the college, held her up as all that was good and pure. Missy, as the very first B.A. graduate, would be the one to show the world what Milford College could do.

  When the letter from Winslow came requesting a Negro teacher, Mrs. March Lewis summoned her in her official capacity—not as a family member.

  “This is your chance, Missy. So many of us stay here, but you’re the one who has been chosen by God to go forward into the world.”

  Her chance was just on the other side of Georgia in the most rural, backward hole of a town. Such a town was the very thing that Missy feared. She had lived in Milford for too long. She knew things were bad for Negroes elsewhere, but she had read about it in the newspaper. She did not want to know about it personally.

  Still, as good old MC’s shining light, she was compelled to go forth and spread the word about what the teachers and preachers college could do.

  She loved her Winslow pupils very much. The children were eager and ready to learn. The twenty or so Negro children soaked up all that she could teach them, especially the Bledsoe children. She could tell that their parents spent time with them talking about their world and reading to them from newspapers. Looking at those girls gave her hope for the future. There might be a day where they would not have to go to the mill and work or become laundresses, like Lona. They might make themselves as …well, teachers or maybe nurses. She was well on her way to helping to make this possible for them. Until she met him at the first Sunday picnic, since he didn’t come to church.

  Arlo Tucker.

  They first bonded over the fact that Winslow was the most backwater, dreadful Southern hamlet that ever existed.

  They bonded a little too tightly.

  Which is how Missouri, the best and brightest of Milford College, class of ‘08, ended up where she was now.

  With a big, round belly, too-tight clothes, one good shirtwaist, and little to no money to do anything else about it.

  And now, she had to account for herself in front of the head of the Negro schools, Lona Bledsoe, who just happened to be her baby’s aunt.

  Missy helped her into an open chair, since sitting on one of the narrow pine desks would be hard for her, let alone Mrs. Bledsoe. “Your daughters are all doing splendid work. Such wonderful girls. So vibrant and healthy. And I look forward to graduating Ruby here in just a few weeks. What a proud moment that’ll be for your family.”

  “Hmmm. Yes, it will. I didn’t come to speak about my daughters. Not today.”

  “Oh?” Might as well get it over with. Missy’s heart sank at what Mrs. Bledsoe was about to say and do. Better to meet it head on. “Come to compare bellies, then?”

  “Certainly not.” Mrs. Bledsoe drew herself up as if she were contaminated with something.

  “I’m not ashamed.” Missy gripped at the gray cotton skirt that she had let out as much as she could, careful to use the commanding voice she learned from reading poetry in elocution club.

  “Well, I—”

  “Look. I appreciate your concern, Mrs. Bledsoe. I’m making plans now, but it’s a little hard when others”—she lowered her eyelashes—”don’t want to be involved.”

  Mrs. Bledsoe fanned herself with a wayward slate that belonged to Charlie Thompson. “They say it’s my brother’s child. Is that right?”

  No one had the nerve, until now, to ask Missy this question directly. Maybe Lona’s own round stomach gave her the nerve to put it to her just that directly. Missy’s hand slipped on her skirt a little.

  “That’s true. I was seeing him for a time last fall, if you remember.”

  “And ever since then?”

  “Ever since then? Since Christmas break?” She folded her hands beneath her own growing belly to prop herself up. “He’s been by sometimes. However, when I let him know about me…well, he’s been scarce ever since.”

  “Oh!” Mrs. Bledsoe put down the slate and whipped
out a hanky from her house dress pocket. “I wish I could say… You see, we came up a very hard way. Things have happened, unspeakable things. So, sometimes he doesn’t know what to do. No one has ever put responsibility on him.”

  Missy folded her arms, troubled by the woman’s words. “That’s clear enough, ma’am.”

  “I mean, I don’t suppose it could be anyone’s but Arlo’s?”

  What? Missy gripped the edges of the desk. “I made this one mistake…just one. That doesn’t mean that I’m up for others, Mrs. Bledsoe. I believed myself to be in love.”

  Mrs. Bledsoe turned from her, silent. “My brother is very, very special.”

  He certainly was. Everything about Arlo made her melt inside. Oh yes, looking back at it now in the good light of day, Arlo Tucker was trouble waiting to happen. She could not envision him in the neat parlor to meet her principal cousin March Lewis or the matriarch/founder of Milford College, Miss Amanda. Oh, no. That old lady would call him trouble right off.

  Yet his baby fluttered on soft wings of creation just underneath her heart, and was the most patient child whenever she talked to her pupils about world history and geography.

  Oh yes, my little one, you’ll go to places. You’ll do the great things I didn’t get a chance to do. You’ll be the one to uplift the race.

  She had made a dreadful mistake and wasn’t about to make another one getting back together with trouble with a capital T.

  Her knees trembled a bit and she held on more firmly to the desk. No. She had no love for that long, tall, high-yellow drink of water who acted as if his guitar playing and singing made him special.

  She would not think of the languid way he moved. He always carried on about the good time place he had opened, serving liquor and playing his guitar with long strumming fingers. She would not think of his musicianship or his talk about uplifting the race. He was so proud he provided some escape for the mill workers of Winslow. She wouldn’t hook up her heart to someone who spoke too loud and laughed too loud to know that he was a Negro, not when he should be quiet, lower his voice and keep his head low. No. That man was nothing special. A shiver ran through her at the memory of his touch.