Love for All Seasons

by Stacy Henrie

  This war is ghastly and I thank the Lord every night that you are far removed from it. I’m not the man I once was and you deserve better. I don’t want you to write me anymore, though I’ll cherish the letters you have written. This will be my final letter. Please don’t send a response. I won’t be writing anyone anymore except my parents.

  I love you, Sammie. But this is for the best.

  Yours always,

  Rex

  She could hardly make out his signature for the tears dripping off her cheeks onto the page. He no longer wanted to exchange letters with her or be her sweetheart. But why?

  Anger began to boil within her, replacing her shock. She crumbled the letter in her hand and threw it against the far wall, where it hit the sampler she’d sewn as a girl. To every thing there is a season, it read in fairly even stitches.

  How dare he make such a decision without consulting her? She loved him and he loved her. Surely they could have worked through whatever was devouring him from the inside out. Why did he have to charge ahead, breaking her heart in the process, and not even giving her the chance to understand?

  Jumping to her feet, Samantha paced the rug, her arms pressed tight against the ache forming in her chest. She had to do something, but what? If only she could see him and talk to him face-to-face. For a moment she contemplated traveling South to find him. But she and her father had little extra money for such a trip.

  Then she would write him back and beg him to explain, to reconsider. She would pour every piece of her heart onto the page, and then, he would change his mind.

  But even as she thought it, she realized such a letter would do no good. Rex knew her too well. If he asked her not to write him again, she would be honor-bound to respect his wishes, and their deep friendship, by complying. Even if it tore her inside to do so.

  “Oh, Rex?” she whispered as she sunk onto the floor. “What have you done?”

  She had taken that step of faith by agreeing to wait for him, in spite of her fears. And he’d promised they would figure things out together, that he would show her every chance he got how lucky he felt to have her as his girl.

  And yet now her dreams—their dreams—were no more, and he had blocked any effort at restoring them. How would she go on? His absence had been difficult enough to bear this last year and a half. But not to have his letters or the chance to write him back? To have cold silence replace the warmth and love and trust of their relationship? The grief sliced through her with such force that her lungs protested. She gulped in a great, sobbing breath.

  After a minute or two of weeping, she reached out and picked up his letter where it had fallen. Creases marred the words and she worked to smooth them out. This was her last connection to Rex and she would keep it.

  Her eyes rose to the words of the sampler. Help me make it through this season of pain, Lord. Help me keep going. And please . . . She blinked back fresh tears. Bless and protect Rex.

  Though the anguish of his choice still pierced her, Samantha squared her shoulders. She would carry on. One hour, one week, one month, one year at a time. She slipped the letter into her pocket as a weight, heavy and painful, slipped onto her heart.

  Chapter 2

  Christmas Eve, 1864: Two years later

  Rex ran a finger over the smooth wood of the toy carving. The tiny elephant had turned out better than he’d expected. Either this or the giraffe he’d whittled the week before would make a nice Christmas gift for his young nephew.

  “Rex?” his mother called from the direction of the kitchen.

  Pocketing the elephant, he exited the front room and followed the smell of boysenberry jam to the back of the house.

  His mother glanced up as he entered the kitchen. “Will you take this box of jams over to the Whitefields?”

  Rex glanced out the window at the snow, which had picked up since the afternoon. Hopefully his father would still be able to make it back to the farm with Rex’s sister and her family in tow. It would be the first Christmas in three years that they would all be together.

  But it wasn’t the snow or the cold walk to their closest neighbor’s that had his gut twisting with apprehension. It was the thought of seeing Samantha, in her own home.

  He would never forget the shock and pain in her eyes when she’d approached him that first Sunday in church after he’d returned from the war. She’d stood to the side, waiting to speak with him, and Rex had longed for and feared the moment when she would. What would she say to him? Did she loathe him as much as he did himself?

  Rex couldn’t recall now what either of them had said that day. But he’d come away from the experience determined to honor the promise he’d made to himself—that someone as pure and innocent as Samantha shouldn’t be saddled for life with a man like him. A man still haunted by what he’d seen and done in the war. He’d managed to keep that promise, so far, only speaking with her when they saw each other briefly at church.

  “Rex?” his mother repeated, her gaze and tone full of concern. They’d been that way often the last six months.

  Pushing aside his uneasiness, he moved to grab his coat from beside the back door. “I’ll take it over.” Perhaps her father would answer the door and Rex wouldn’t have to see Samantha at all.

  But that hope died when his mother said, “Mr. Whitefield is ill, so I don’t know if they’re venturing out this evening or not. Either way, they’ll have my jam.”

  So much for avoiding Samantha. If her father was sick, she’d likely be the one to answer Rex’s knock.

  He slipped into his coat, hat and gloves and hefted the crate. His mother held the door open for him, allowing a blast of snowy air to rush into the kitchen. “Tell them Merry Christmas from us,” she called after him.

  Nodding to show he’d heard, he gritted his teeth against the cold—and the unpleasant task before him.

  • • •

  “Give me my other boot, daughter. I’m late as it is.”

  Samantha gripped the laces of the worn brown shoe and shook her head. “You are too sick to go, Papa.”

  “Nonsense.” Her father’s green eyes, the same color as her own, sparked with righteous fire. “So help me, Sammie . . . You will not keep me from my task.”

  “I’m not. This dreadful cold is.”

  As if confirming the truth, her father began coughing. He braced himself against the headboard of the bed, his shoulders quaking with the coughs and his stubborn attempt to sit up.

  She placed the shoe out of reach across the room and came to kneel beside him, her hand on his knee. “Papa, you can’t go out tonight. Not with your cold, and certainly not in this weather.”

  “It’s only a few flurries,” he stated flatly, motioning toward the window. But she could tell this last coughing fit had drained him.

  “Yes, but it could grow heavier at any minute.”

  He regarded her with a sad expression. “That’s my Sammie. Always a’worryin’ about the future, or things getting worse.”

  Though she sensed the love behind his words, they still brought her a deep twinge of hurt. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have faith. But anyone would be susceptible to fear after losing a mother, a baby sister, a brother-in-law, and the man she’d once loved . . .

  She attempted to shut her mind against thoughts of Rex, but it was nearly impossible. She still thought of him every day and prayed for him every night. He may have broken her heart, but she was still grateful he’d returned home alive at the end of June.

  “Look who’s worried about the future,” she countered, standing. “Our friends and neighbors will be fine without your gifts.”

  Her father drove a fist into the quilt. “Confound it, Sammie. I have delivered Christmas Eve gifts for more than twenty years and never missed a year yet. Not even blizzards or a broken sleigh has stopped me.”

  Samantha pinched the bridge of her nose—he couldn’t be reasoned with. But the doctor had strictly forbidden him from going out. “This could turn into pneumonia if yo
u aren’t careful, Hyrum,” the young physician had warned. And Samantha was taking no chances. Pneumonia had taken her mother and infant sister; it wouldn’t be the death of her father too.

  “Maybe you can go next week,” she offered.

  “It must be tonight, Christmas Eve.” He crossed his arms over his barrel chest and glared at her.

  She threw her hands in the air. “Papa, enough. You can’t go. Dr. Hobson confirmed it yesterday. And no amount of bluster will change that.”

  His eyes darted to the bureau, where she’d set his shoe, his plan evident in his determined expression. Samantha marched over and picked up the boot. “And just in case you attempt to try anything, I will be keeping this with me while I finish preparing dinner.”

  She started for the door, but he called her back, his voice full of contrition. “Sammie, wait. I heard the doctor, too, and I know you’re scared for me, daughter. But I’ll be fine. It’s one night. Please. Some of these children won’t get anything if I don’t come.”

  Shutting her eyes, Samantha pulled in a calming breath. Perhaps she could go in his place, even if she would be alone. She or one of her sisters had always accompanied him in the past, though it had been solely her responsibility to ride with him the last five years after her fourth sister had married. The gifts they’d made were already packed in a feed sack by the front door anyway.

  “I’ll go,” she announced, opening her eyes.

  “Alone?” It was her father’s turn to shake his head. “You can’t, not in this cold. What if there’s trouble with the sleigh or Titus injures himself while pulling it? What if you don’t stay warm enough?”

  Samantha gave a light chuckle. “Who’s worrying now? I’ll be fine.”

  “No, Sammie. I insist you find someone to go with you.”

  First insisting he goes and now insisting I don’t go alone. “Papa, who am I supposed to have come with me? On Christmas Eve, no less.”

  “God will provide,” he stated with assurance, one finger pointed at the ceiling. “I will start praying now.”

  “Fine. And in the meantime, I’m going to lay out our supper and get my winter things together.”

  She exited the bedroom and trooped down the stairs to the kitchen, willing her irritation to evaporate like mist on the pond. They both meant well. If only her father hadn’t taken sick . . . But he would mend soon. The doctor had commended her more than once on her excellent nursing.

  His compliments had pleased her. Probably more than they should, she thought as she set down her father’s boot and began preparing his supper tray.

  The young doctor was nice-looking and amiable. But she’d lost her heart in the past and wasn’t sure she would ever get it back. Even though Rex was home now, he had made it clear they no longer had a relationship.

  She nearly hadn’t recognized him that first Sunday in church. It took her a minute or two of surreptitious staring to realize the gaunt face with haunted eyes and a trimmed beard belonged to Rex. But the revelation was quickly followed by sharp disappointment that he hadn’t come to see her personally the moment he’d returned. Then came the pain, as fresh as if she’d read his letter of rejection that very morning, and the unanswered questions of why.

  Swallowing her resentment and pride, she’d approached him as he stood talking with several others. Up close she could detect the shadows that clung to him and the absent spark from his blue eyes.

  She waited a few paces away for him to finish, anxiety churning the breakfast in her stomach. Finally he turned. For one brief moment, as they silently watched each other, she thought she saw tenderness, sorrow, and raw pain in his gaze. Her pulse jerked with hope.

  But the hope withered to ash when he shuttered his expression and said her name in a stiffly polite voice. “Hello, Samantha.”

  She managed to ask how he fared without dissolving into tears. But by the time the awkward conversation ended a few minutes later, she felt wrung out. She hadn’t just lost his love the day she’d received his letter; she’d lost her dearest and oldest friend too.

  They’d largely avoided each other the last six months, except for Sundays, when they exchanged courteous salutations. At first Samantha had come home from services more distressed than comforted. Gradually the pain lessened, though, until it became a manageable numbness. Now when she saw Rex, she felt only a twinge of regret for what might have been.

  But her heart hadn’t weathered the pain as successfully as her emotions. She sensed it had hardened even more with fear than it had in the past—making her reluctant to welcome the doctor’s obvious interest in her.

  She picked up her father’s tray, laden with soup, bread, and tea, but a knock at the front door had her setting it back down on the table. Who would be out in the snow at suppertime?

  Hurrying to the entryway, she lifted the lamp off the side table and opened the door. A man stood on the porch, stomping snow from his boots, his face obscured by his hat.

  “Cold night to be out. Can I help y—” The rest of the words froze inside her throat when the man lifted his chin and she found herself gazing at Rex. It was the first time since his return that he’d come to their door.

  “Evenin’, Samantha.” He kept his expression neutral, though a flicker of something flashed in his eyes before disappearing.

  She nodded, uncertainty making her grateful she hadn’t eaten more than a little bread just now. Why was he here? What did he wish to say that he couldn’t in church?

  “I have the jam,” he said, hoisting a crate that Samantha hadn’t noticed earlier. “For your father’s sleigh run tonight.” Mrs. Montgomery had been adding boysenberry jam to her father’s Christmas Eve deliveries for years.

  “Oh, yes.” Samantha glanced at the lamp in her hand, debating whether to set it down and take the box or invite Rex to bring it inside.

  He made the decision for her by taking a step forward. “Should I bring the jam in?”

  “Um . . . yes.” She stepped back to allow him entrance. “Just set the box in the parlor. Thank you.”

  After setting down the crate, he straightened, his glance taking her in before rising to the stairs. “How is your father? My mother said he was sick.”

  “He still is.” A blast of frigid air forced Samantha to shut the door, though she didn’t know how long she could remain there, making small talk with Rex. It was different in church. Here, in her own home, memories of the two of them filled nearly every space.

  And those memories threatened to choke her now that he stood here again, in the flesh. “It’s not pneumonia though,” she added, in a voice much calmer than she felt.

  Rex removed his hat and fingered the brim. “That’s good. Will he still be going out tonight?”

  “No, actually. I’m going in his place.”

  A look of surprise passed over his face, then he frowned. “Alone? Isn’t that a bit unwise, on a cold night like this?”

  Samantha’s jaw went slack. He’d tossed away their friendship, with no real explanation, and now he had the audacity to come into her home and expect her to listen to his concerns? She drew herself up to full height, though she still came to just below his nose. “I’ll be fine. It isn’t as if I’m going somewhere far or unfamiliar.”

  Instead of departing or arguing further, he lifted one corner of his mouth. It was the closest thing to a smile she’d seen on his face in months. And the sight of it did something funny to her stomach. “Still as stubborn as ever,” he said with an amused shake of his head.

  Her fingers curled tighter around the lamp as annoyance rippled through her. What was he doing, speaking with such friendliness and familiarity? Was he toying with her heart?

  Before she could ask, a shuffling at the top of the stairs pulled her attention away from him. “Rex, my boy,” her father exclaimed, grinning even as his chest rose and fell with hard breaths from walking out of his bedroom.

  “Papa.” Samantha set the lamp down on the hall table and hurried up the stairs. “What
are you doing?”

  Her father shrugged. “Heard someone at the door and thought I recognized the lad’s voice. Thought to myself, That must be Rex Montgomery. And sure thing, it is.” He leaned close to whisper to her, though not soft enough, “An answer to our prayers this night as well. Right, daughter?”

  Cheeks burning with mortification, Samantha refused to glance down the stairs to where Rex still stood. He was certainly no answer to prayer, and despite his friendly teasing of a moment ago, likely wished to spend as little time with her as she did with him.

  “No, Papa,” she hissed. “He was just delivering his mother’s jam. Now get back to bed.” She gripped her father’s arm, but he wouldn’t move.

  “You ’eard I’ve been sick, Rex?”

  “Yes, sir.” His tone rang with sincerity. “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  Her father waved away the apology. “I’ll be right as rain in no time, what with the good Lord helping and my skilled daughter.”

  Samantha’s face felt even hotter. She had to get her father back to his room if she hoped to end his crazed babbling. Or worse, before he insisted Rex accompany her. She would go alone, even if it meant freezing to death. There was no way she would spend the evening in a cozy sleigh with Rex.

  “Glad to hear you’re on the mend,” Rex said.

  She tried once more to nudge her father away from the stairs, but he dug his heels in. “Yes, but I can’t go on my Christmas Eve run tonight.” Her father’s sigh sounded a bit exaggerated. “And Sammie won’t hear of someone not going at all.”

  Stifling a groan, she pushed him gently forward. “Back to bed, Papa.” He only moved a few inches.

  “The girl is going to go alone,” her father declared with a shake of his head.

  “Not very smart.” Rex’s voice from right behind her made her heart jolt. She hadn’t realized he’d ascended the stairs.

  Her father threw her a triumphant look. “I agree with you, Rex. ’Tis not smart at all. She needs someone to go with her.”