To his credit, Blake winced. “Listen, McGrath, I’m sorry for what happened to you. I truly am, but—”
“Your condolences are appreciated, Mr. Blake”—Cullen worked to contain his temper—“but what I would appreciate even more is to be able to purchase these items on credit. Just this once. I need these supplies to harvest my crops.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I could help.” Blake returned the piece of paper. “But I can’t extend you credit.”
Cullen leveled his gaze. “They tried to kill a man that night, Mr. Blake. Hung him right there in front of his wife. That’s an image I’ll never get out of my head. That, and the children with their arms and legs all burned and blistered from the fire. And all this because of cowards hidin’ behind hoods.”
Blake lowered his head, but when he looked up again his eyes held warning. “You don’t understand how things are around here, McGrath.” He lowered his voice. “And what those men are like.”
“Oh, I have a fairly good idea.” Cullen paused. “Do you know who they are?”
Blake shook his head, glancing around them. “I don’t. And you’d do well not to do anything to provoke them.”
“Provoke them? I was on my own land!”
Casting another glance behind him, Blake drew himself up. “I sold to you before, McGrath, because you had cash.”
Cullen narrowed his eyes. “And an Irishman’s word to pay isn’t good enough?”
“That’s not it. I sold to you despite knowing others wouldn’t like it. If it were up to me, I’d charge the whole lot of it for you. Gilbert Linden was a good friend, McGrath, and an honorable man. As are you. But I’m only part owner of this place. The lesser partner. And my business associate has made it clear he’s not in favor of certain decisions I’ve made. I’m truly sorry, but I have workers to take care of, too, McGrath. And a family. As well as a business to run.”
Cullen eyed the list in his hand. “You’re the only lumberyard in town, Mr. Blake.” When Blake didn’t answer, Cullen returned the list to his pocket. “May I ask, then, is your business partner here? Perhaps I could speak with him?”
“He’s not. But it wouldn’t do you any good. And if he gets wind that I’ve sold to you again, even in cash, it won’t go well for me. But I want you to know”—he looked as though what he was about to say cost him greatly—“I don’t hold to his opinions about people, McGrath. Or to how so many folks feel about foreigners around here. Which is why I’m willing to do what I can for you. In cash.”
Able to see the man’s situation, Cullen also saw his own, and so much more. “An honorable man, and a friend to us both, once told me that the time is comin’ when a man will have to boldly stand for what he believes, or everythin’ he holds dear will be taken from him. And from those he loves.”
Blake’s jaw hardened, the muscles working, and Cullen could see his struggle. And couldn’t fault him for it. Wasn’t he wrestling with the same thing himself?
A moment passed, and Blake finally shook his head, and Cullen felt his own conviction edge up a notch. He strode to the door.
“McGrath?”
Cullen paused, not turning back.
“What everyone is saying is that your wife . . . she shot the rope clean through. Is that true?”
Cullen turned and read disbelief in Blake’s eyes, then saw the oldtimer waiting for an answer as well. He felt a surprising smile come to his face. “That she did. And with only one shot fired.”
“It weren’t his time,” the old-timer whispered, fingering the string around his wrist, his eyes surprisingly clear.
Thinking about Ennis and the voice Maggie had heard, Cullen reached for the door. “No, Mr. Collum, it wasn’t. Good day, gentlemen.”
Cullen stopped briefly by the mercantile for a handful of items Maggie had requested. The outcome of his conversation with Mr. Blake still roiled inside him, as did the counsel from his late father-in-law.
How did a man boldly stand for what he believed, when standing so boldly could very well end up costing him the people and property he sought so hard to protect?
Not for the first time, he wished he could have another evening—or a hundred of them—to sit with Gilbert Linden and pose questions, glean from his wisdom.
With no lumber, building the wagons themselves wasn’t an option. He could buy the wagons—at much greater cost—if someone would sell them to him. And only if they would allow him to buy them on credit. And he already knew the answers to one, if not both, of those questions.
Every farm in the area was harvesting, or soon would be, so borrowing wagons for the next two to three weeks wasn’t an option either. No, they’d simply have to make do with the one wagon they had left. Which meant harvesting the crops would take much longer, and a portion of the produce would overmature or even mold in the fields, which would lower—or negate—the market price.
Just thinking about telling Maggie sent his mood from bad to worse. He recalled on their wedding night how she’d told him she viewed their marriage as a business arrangement. He huffed a breath. Some business partner he’d turned out to be.
He joined the queue to pay for his items, realizing how much Maggie’s opinion of him mattered. Far more than she likely knew. A man needed the respect of his wife as much, if not more, than he needed her love.
When he’d left the stable earlier that morning, Maggie and Rachel had been attempting, with meager success, to coax Bourbon Belle into standing. The thoroughbred could barely support her own weight, and when she did, her rear legs seemed ready to buckle.
Witnessing the pain in Maggie’s eyes tore at him. And watching what was happening to Belle—this magnificent blood horse struggling to walk when she’d once been the envy of the wind—brought to mind the stallion Ethan had poisoned and what the animal must have suffered. It disturbed him in a way it hadn’t before.
Perhaps because it was more real to him now, seeing Belle endure it—and having confessed the truth to Maggie. How could his brother, the defender, the protector, have done such a thing?
After paying for his items, Cullen returned to the wagon and placed the crate in the bed, eager to get home, though not eager to explain to Maggie the outcome of his trip. Imagining the disappointment in her eyes felt like a blunt knife shoved between his ribs.
Riled all over again, he started to climb up to the buckboard when he caught a whiff of tobacco and stilled—instinct yanking hard at his memory.
The scent had a distinctive sweetness to it.
It took him a moment, but he finally placed it. That night, the night Maggie thought she’d seen someone outside, he’d smelled the same scent as he’d walked back to the house.
The sweet-smelling tobacco grew stronger, and he reached into the wagon bed under the guise of looking for something, all while scanning the passersby and reminding himself that plenty of men smoked tobacco, sweet varieties included.
But somewhere among them, Cullen knew, was one man who had come onto his land, onto his front porch, and frightened his wife, a woman who didn’t frighten easily.
Cullen’s gaze snagged on a man, and held. Some ten paces past the wagon, the fellow seemed to be in a hurry, and hanging from his mouth—a cigar.
Watching his progress, Cullen pretended to check the items in the crate, then followed him down the street, the sweet scent wafting back on occasion.
Cullen hadn’t seen the man’s face straight on, and he didn’t recognize him from behind. He followed the stranger on foot, and after four blocks began to wonder whether he was simply wasting his time.
The fellow paused. Cullen did likewise.
The man took one last puff on the cigar and exhaled, smoke pluming about his head. He searched the street one way, then turned, and Cullen saw his face. He recognized him, he was certain of it. But from where? The way the man stood—cocksure and assuming—seemed a little familiar, as did the way he dropped the cigar and ground the butt out with his foot.
Bonnie Scotland. This was the f
ool that day with the whip! Cullen struggled to remember his name.
The man continued down the street until he’d nearly reached the corner, then he ducked inside a building. Cullen closed the distance, his familiarity with the area quickly narrowing the likelihood of where the man—Grady Matthews, that was his name—had gone.
So when Cullen found his suspicions confirmed, it wasn’t so much a surprise to him as it felt as if a missing link had suddenly found its place.
And his earlier anger felt tame by comparison.
Chapter
THIRTY-EIGHT
Come on, girl,” Maggie whispered, gently tugging Belle’s lead rein, encouraging her to try to stand. Even Bucket issued a soft whine from where he lay watching a few feet away. Maggie tugged harder. “You can do it.”
Lying on her side, Bourbon Belle looked up at her with eyes so dark and full of love and confusion that Maggie had to choke back a sob. She never should have put Kizzy on Belle to begin with. Maybe Cullen was right. Even though she never formally stated that she was training Kizzy to race, in her heart she was.
Anyone else looking on would have assumed that’s what she was doing. But except for Uncle Bob, who at Belle Meade would have taken notice of such a thing? As soon as that thought occurred, another followed. General Harding entertained many important visitors. They came and went without Maggie’s notice.
But apparently one of them had noticed Belle and Kizzy. What other explanation could there be?
Unless . . . the evil behind Ennis’s hanging and setting fire to the cabins and wagons had turned its wandering eye to Belle, too, and did this as yet another way to hurt, destroy, and instill fear.
Not knowing the reason, and with silent tears slipping down her cheeks, Maggie pressed her forehead to Belle’s. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, hoping somehow this beautiful, magnificent animal knew how much she had enriched her life. How much Belle had freed her in a way she would have never known without her.
The emotion Maggie sought to hold back moments earlier broke through. She moved to one side, where Belle could see her unobstructed. “Thank you,” she said softly, her hand so small against the side of Belle’s head, “for letting me soar.”
“Is she . . . d-dyin’, ma’am?”
Maggie looked up to see Kizzy standing in the stall opening, the girl’s lower lip trembling, her face awash in tears.
Wishing she could offer encouragement, Maggie simply lifted a shoulder and let it fall. “I don’t know. But I pray not.”
Kizzy’s breath came staggered. “I’s prayin’, too, ma’am. We all is.”
Maggie held out a hand, and the girl sank down beside her in the hay. Bucket moved closer, silent but attentive.
Kizzy stroked Belle’s head. “You’s a pretty girl.” The child’s voice, usually so full of spunk and sass, sounded small and scared. “You’s strong too,” she whispered, then leaned down and kissed Belle on the nose.
Belle blew out a breath and briefly raised her head, and Kizzy’s eyes went big. But not as big as Maggie’s felt.
“Go on,” Maggie urged. “Keep talking to her.”
As Kizzy leaned close, Maggie reached over and got a lump of sugar from the shelf and slipped it into Kizzy’s hand. The girl held it to Belle’s mouth, but the mare simply snorted in response.
Kizzy wiped off her hand and tried again, this time acting as if she was eating it first before she offered it to Belle. But the outcome was the same.
“I’m back, Missus McGrath.”
Maggie peered up at Rachel, who smiled at the scene of Kizzy lying beside Belle in the hay, all cozied up and quiet.
“I see Miss Belle has her a visitor.” Rachel laid her basket of herbs aside.
Maggie glanced back. “I think Belle’s happy to see her. How is Mr. Ennis?”
Rachel retrieved her mortar and pestle. “That man got a strength in him there ain’t hardly a word for. ’Cept maybe God.”
Maggie smiled. “His wife, Odessia, has that same strength.”
“Mmm hmm . . .” Rachel pulled the herbs from her basket and began grinding them in the mortar. “God did right in bringin’ them two together.”
Maggie studied her grandmother’s wedding band on her left hand, and thought of everything that had happened in Cullen’s and her lives to bring them together at this point. So many beginnings and endings, too many to count. And was God aware of them all? Did he orchestrate them?
Or did he present different paths, ones he permitted, and then leave room for each person to decide which one to take?
She wasn’t certain, but after recent months, she’d begun to think perhaps it was a blending of both.
“I’s there when they jumped the broom together.”
Rachel’s comment pulled Maggie back.
“’Nother lifetime ago now.” Rachel sighed. “Long ’fore any of they children come along.”
“When I was a girl,” Maggie said, speaking softly, “I used to hide down by the cabins and watch when the couples would have the broom ceremony. Mary Harding would come with me too. We grew up wishing we could get married that way. We thought it was so special.”
Rachel stilled. “Special?”
Sensing from the woman’s tone that she’d said something wrong, Maggie sobered. “Well . . . yes. I suppose it was because the ritual was so different from ours.”
Rachel held her stare, then gently laid aside the pestle and mortar and brushed off her hands. “It ain’t your fault, ma’am. You was just a girl then. But now that you older, I think it’s important you know.”
Maggie grew aware of Kizzy listening too.
“Reason why all them couples jumped the broom back then—me and my husband, Ennis and Dessie—we did it ’cuz we wasn’t allowed to get married. Only free people get married, Missus McGrath.”
The woman’s soft smile wasn’t the least bit cruel or mocking, quite the opposite. So why did Maggie feel cut open and laid bare?
“Marriage give a couple rights over each other, and them rights ran straight against the way things used to be. So we chose to do somethin’ that would show we was as close to married as allowed . . . by the folks who owned us.”
Her heart in her throat, Maggie could almost feel the soft flurry against her face as memory upon memory was shuffled and reordered, and as truth shed light on the hushed whispers and giggles of little girls hiding in the woods behind the cabins. The very same woods where Jobah, Micah, and Kizzy had hidden when men came to burn their home and murder their father.
Sometime later Maggie peered through the open door of the stable and knew something was wrong the minute Cullen jumped down from the wagon. His expression was fierce, his demeanor brusque. And the wagon bed . . . empty, but for a small crate.
Leaving Belle to Rachel’s care, she joined him outside where Bucket was already greeting him, the collie’s tail wagging and tongue lolling. Cullen gave the dog a quick pat, but didn’t seem at all eager, Maggie noticed, to meet her gaze.
“We’ll have to make do with the wagon we’ve got,” he announced. “But we’ll manage.” With a cursory glance, he grabbed the crate of items from the mercantile and carried it into the house, Bucket romping behind him.
Her stunned silence short-lived, Maggie followed. “I don’t understand. I thought you were going to the lumberyard to get supplies to build new wagons.”
“I did. Blake said no.” He set the crate down on the kitchen table with more force than necessary, and Onnie stared between them. Cullen strode back outside, dog on his heels.
Maggie cast Onnie an apologetic look and hurried to catch up with Cullen. “But why? Were they out of lumber?”
“They have plenty of lumber, Maggie.”
“And yet you came home with nothing.”
He began unhitching Levi from the wagon, his movements quick and sharp. “As I said, we’ll manage.”
His ire prodded her own, and Maggie reached for patience worn thin by sleepless nights and concern over Belle. “
Papa purchased from Mr. Blake for years. It’s not like the man to turn away business.”
Cullen said nothing.
She moved a little to one side in order to see him better. “Did you explain to him why you were there? And what happened here the other night?”
“Aye, I did.”
“And what did he say?”
He blew out a breath. “The man said he was sorry, Maggie! And then he said no. That’s it! Now, I’ve got work to do.”
Taken aback by his sharp tone, Maggie felt her shoulders go stiff. “So how are we going to harvest the crops in time if we don’t have but one wagon?”
“As I said, we’ll make do. And we’ll work as fast as we can.”
“Make do?” She came alongside him. “You keep saying that. But if the crops are left too long in the field, they’ll begin to rot and—”
“That’s why we’ll work as fast as we can.”
Frustrated and tired, Maggie quickly decided what needed to be done. “I know Mr. Blake very well, Cullen. I’ll go see him first thing tomorrow and—”
“Oh—” His laughter was brittle. “That’s just dandy! Exactly what a husband wants . . . for his wife to go beggin’ on his behalf.”
“Begging?” She looked up at him. “I said nothing about going to beg. All I said was that—”
“He wouldn’t lend me credit, Margaret!” The muscles worked in his jaw. “That’s the reason I came home with no lumber.”
“But . . . why are you buying on credit? We’ve always paid for everything with—”
She read the answer in his eyes, and suddenly it all made sense. The reason he wouldn’t look at her. Why he didn’t want to answer her questions. He wasn’t angry. He was embarrassed. And . . .
They were out of money.
She tried not to let the shock—and disappointment—show in her expression, but knew from the way his eyes darkened that she’d failed miserably. “Cullen, I—”
“I don’t want to discuss it now, Maggie.”
“But we need to. If Linden Downs is having financial trouble again, then I—”
To Win Her Favor Page 32
