Suki's Heart

by Indiana Wake

  “Gracie, I don’t have any little methods. I don’t have a plan. I don’t have a way of doing things. I’m just myself and that is all. You ought to try it, it might make you a little less spiteful.”

  “There you go again, thinking yourself so high and mighty, so above it all.”

  “I don’t think myself high and mighty, Gracie Thornhill, but you’re right, I am most definitely above ridiculous and pointless little arguments like this.”

  “Maybe somebody managed to finally get under that frozen skin of yours,” the hateful little thing persisted. “You must have been devastated when he decided to have nothing more to do with your nonsense and walked away from you and back to me.”

  “Enjoy your victory, Gracie, but know that it is a hollow one.”

  “He walked away from you and then you ran away.”

  “Gracie, I refused to dance with him and told him that I wouldn’t be staying, that’s why he returned to his seat.” Suki shrugged. “It’s as simple as that.”

  “You’re making that up.”

  “I have no need to make it up.”

  “I know you like him. I can see it.”

  “This conversation is finished. I have things to do and you’re wasting my time.” Suki made to walk past her, but Gracie gripped her upper arm and pinched it hard between her bony fingers.

  Gracie shook herself free and fought an urge to push the smaller woman to the ground. It would have been a simple enough thing to do, but so far from Suki’s character that it would have harmed her more than it would have harmed Gracie.

  “Keep your hands off me, you silly girl,” Suki chastised.

  “Are you really trying to tell me that you don’t feel a thing for Sonny Reynolds? You don’t like him at all?”

  “I didn’t say I don’t like him, did I? But I’m not having this conversation with you, it’s pointless.”

  “You’re not having him,” Gracie hissed, her nose wrinkling and her eyes narrowed. “You’re not having him because he’s mine.”

  “For heaven’s sake, he is a free man. He doesn’t belong to anybody.”

  “History is not going to repeat itself here, Suki, believe me. Your mother might have won, but you’re not going to.”

  “I can’t believe you’ve spent your whole life in such twisted blackness. My mother didn’t steal my father away from Catherine Thornhill, he was never hers. He just loved my mother and she loved him; it was your own mother who tried to get between them. But for goodness sake, it was twenty-three years ago. It was before you were even born.”

  “My mother has never got over the way she was treated,” Gracie accused.

  “Your mother treated everybody around her as if they were just objects, my father included. She lied and cheated and did just about everything in her power to pull apart two people who loved each other very much and still do. If that hurt her, she had only herself to blame. And if you spend the rest of your life in some ridiculous vendetta, wasting everything good that you have, then you will only have yourself to blame too.”

  “Oh, aren’t you the clever one!”

  “When compared with you, yes.” Suki had had enough. “Look, your mother married, didn’t she? As far as I can see, she married well. Do you not love your father?”

  “Of course, I love my father, what a horrible thing to say.” Gracie looked so offended that it was ridiculous.

  How could such a spiteful little woman object so vehemently to somebody turning the tables on her? Suki’s exasperation was overflowing.

  “But you still would rather that your mother had married my father?” Suki decided to attack her with logic.

  “No, of course not. My father is far superior to your father,” Gracie said defensively.

  “Then surely you should just be glad that my father chose my mother instead, shouldn’t you? You see, your spite has no true reason it, does it? You cannot see that things worked out for the best in the end, can you? Your mother married a man that she appears to love and yet neither you nor she are happy about that. You’re so consumed with your vanity and your sense of being wronged you will end up ruining your own life. Honestly, after so many years, I couldn’t care less, but I’ve had enough of your misplaced anger. Go elsewhere with it, Gracie, you’re boring me.” Finally, Suki pushed past her and walked away.

  “If you think Sonny Reynolds likes you so much, think again,” Gracie called out after her with embarrassing volume. “He wasn’t at all bothered that you hobbled away, Suki Shepherd. If he was, he wouldn’t have spent the rest of the night dancing with me, would he?” Suki stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around to look at Gracie, hoping to be able to see a lie on her face. “That’s right, I was in his arms all night. If you don’t believe me, just ask him.” The look of absolute victory on Gracie’s face told Suki, without a doubt, that it was true.

  Suki turned away again and continued to walk, her heart racing and a feeling of nausea in the pit of her stomach. Once again, she was being taught a lesson about opening her heart to somebody, and it was not a favorable lesson. She’d made a fool of herself at the dinner table, talking about his skills, admiring him, singing his praises. And all the while he’d sat there with the knowledge that his own attentions lay elsewhere.

  How had she thought him such a wonderful man? Why had she allowed him to permeate her thoughts so completely? She ought to have known better, she ought to have realized that there was a reason for her fear. It wasn’t irrational, it was healthy. A healthy fear which had kept her out of emotional danger for her entire adult life.

  “He’s mine, Suki Shepherd!” Even as Suki walked away, Gracie continued to screech like an alley cat. “History is going to work out real different this time, you mark my words.”

  Suki kept her eyes front and quickened her pace until she reached the door of the grocery store and darted inside.

  With shaking hands, she held the list out to the grocer and just smiled as best she could. She felt too devastated to speak and just wanted to be back in the wagon and on her way home again.

  Despite the efforts of the grocer, Suki said very little. With a small crate of groceries in her arms, she cautiously made her way back out into the brilliant sunshine which had been so beautiful to her not an hour before. She looked this way and that tentatively, relieved to find no sign at all of the hateful little Gracie Thornhill.

  She hurried back down to the wagon and set the groceries inside, climbing up and grasping the reins, intent on home. Suki hadn’t finished her mother’s errands, and neither would she. She just wanted to be home, safe, no fear of further hurt to her heart.

  As she made her way slowly back up the dirt track, Suki could no longer smell the sweet long grass on the warm summer air. Even though the sun was still out fully, the sky no longer appeared to be so brilliantly blue to her anymore, and any thoughts of Sonny Reynolds’ mesmerizing eyes were pushed from her mind.

  That was, of course, until he appeared on the track in front of her, on horseback and clearly heading for home. He smiled, slowing his horse and bringing it alongside the wagon.

  “How are you, Suki?” he said, his beaming smile telling her that he was so pleased to have found her where he had least expected her.

  But Suki knew such smiles couldn’t be trusted. Such smiles held lies behind them; nights of dancing and holding another woman and goodness knows what else. Well, she wouldn’t be fooled again.

  “I’m well, Mr. Reynolds,” she said sharply. “But I’m rather busy, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be on my way.”

  “But…” he said and looked at her a little helplessly, utterly confused.

  Without another word, Suki rattled the reins and the horse set off again.

  “Suki?” he called out behind her as she went, but she didn’t even turn around.

  Suki Shepherd was tired of the business of falling in love and decided, in that moment, she would never do anything so ridiculous again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  �
��Forgive me, my friend, but I think, for once, you’re heading in the wrong direction,” Brad Lowry said, his obvious amusement tinged with a little concern. “What’s on your mind? Or should I say who?” He chuckled good-naturedly.

  “I haven’t been getting anything right today, have I? Come on, let’s turn around,” Sonny said, evading the question somewhat.

  Ever since he’d crossed paths with Suki the day before, Sonny had swung between confusion and annoyance. The dinner with the Shepherd family had been wonderful and he had felt himself making that connection with the woman he’d fallen for right there at the table.

  There had been a moment, he was sure of it, when the very essence of each of them had leaned across the table and invisibly untouched. She understood him; she knew how he worked. Suki Shepherd, giving her little commentary to her father of what she’d seen that day when he’d put Dancer to rights, let him know most precisely that she understood him. She knew what it was he did, and she believed in it.

  In California, whenever he discussed the treatment of animals, the connection that could be made, he had been laughed at. Still, he’d come from a town of miners. They were a cynical bunch that were jaded well before they hit twenty years of age. Suki had validated him in some way, and it was something that Sonny Reynolds had never experienced before in his life. In that very moment, he’d known that she was the one woman he could finally let himself love.

  And then, quite out of the blue, she turned her back on him again. Out there on the dirt track, Suki walked out on whatever it was they had between them. She’d walked out, just like his mother.

  “Can I hazard a guess and throw in the name Suki Shepherd?” Brad persisted as the two men guided their horses.

  “I don’t know why I bother, Brad. I thought we were getting somewhere, you know?”

  “So did I. I thought that dinner had gone well for you, hadn’t it?”

  “I guess I was wrong.”

  “Why, what happened?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know. But whatever it was, she has returned to her old self and is giving me the cold shoulder.”

  “Maybe you could just ask why?”

  “I don’t think I’ll bother, Brad.” Sonny laughed cynically. “There’s no point. Why should I break my neck trying to appeal to a woman who blows hot and cold like that? Especially when there’s another one waiting in the wings who’s tripping over her own petticoats to get to me.”

  “Not Gracie Thornhill?” Brad said with a low whistle. “To be perfectly honest, Sonny, Gracie Thornhill is always tripping over her own petticoats to get to some poor fellow.”

  “Which is perfect for me.”

  “How so?”

  “I’ve always found it simpler to involve myself only with women I don’t particularly care about. It makes it so much easier to walk away from them in the end.”

  “So, it’s all right for you to walk away but not them?” Brad said, shrugging apologetically for his words before they were even fully out. “It’s just that…”

  “I know, I do see it.” Sonny nodded. “And really, I’ve got no interest at all in Gracie Thornhill.”

  “Then take my advice and forget about Gracie Thornhill and the five minutes of interest she might give you. Suki Shepherd is an unusual woman, no doubt about it, but she has obviously gotten you thinking. Maybe it’s worth another try? Nothing might come of it, but at least you’ll know for certain.”

  “I don’t know, Brad,” Sonny said and squinted into the sunshine.

  Of all the things he’d thought would be difficult for him when he moved to Oregon, finding himself falling in love with a complicated woman wasn’t one of them. Not finding work, yes. Not finding somewhere decent to live, yes. Never having a friend in the world again, yes, even that. But falling in love and suffering the sense that he’d finally met somebody he wanted to spend the rest of his life with? No, that had never occurred to Sonny Reynolds.

  “She’s bound to be at the cookout,” Brad said, breaking across Sonny’s thoughts.

  “The what?”

  “We have one every year here, Sonny. It’s kind of a big thing, I suppose. Everybody brings a few bits and pieces and those who want to join in cook outside on the field that used to be the temporary camp for people just coming down off the Oregon Trail. It’s a coming together, I suppose, remembering the old spirit of camaraderie. The older ones are determined to keep it going and I have to admit it’s a pretty enjoyable affair.”

  “I never even heard of it.”

  “Well, you’re still new here. But next year it won’t come as a surprise, will it? You’ll be old-hat then.” Brad chuckled.

  “I guess so.” Sonny shrugged.

  “What do you say? I’ll be there. Half the town will be there.” Brad smiled enthusiastically. “And I’ve never known the Shepherd family to miss it,” he added and winked.

  “Maybe I will,” Sonny said, wondering if he really could try again.

  Maybe Brad was right; at least then he’d know for certain.

  “I don’t want to go, Mama,” Suki said sullenly.

  “I know, but your daddy will be upset not to have you with us. It’s an important celebration for the town, sweetheart.”

  “I know.” Suki wished she could simply say no and have everybody listen for once.

  She was tired of doing things to make other people feel easy. What about her own feelings? Just because she didn’t express them too well, or even talk about them at all at times, didn’t mean she had none.

  The truth was that the picture in her mind of Sonny holding Gracie Thornhill in his arms as he danced with her was ripping her heart out. But it was doing so silently, and her family couldn’t even see it. She felt as if she were screaming but no sound was coming out. And, of course, all that mattered was that she attend the cookout so that her father wouldn’t be upset. Or that she never go up on horseback again so that he didn’t spend the whole time worrying. But what about her? What about Suki Shepherd?

  She knew, of course, that she couldn’t truly expect her family to know how she felt if she didn’t tell them. But didn’t they know her well enough to at least have the smallest sense of the devastation in her own heart?

  “I’ll get dressed,” Suki said with resignation as she disappeared to her own bedroom to change out of her work dress and into something more suitable for the town cookout.

  By the time they arrived at the field which used to be the old camp, Suki was in no mood whatsoever to enjoy herself. She had become a little angry with her family, although she knew they didn’t entirely deserve it. More than anything, she was angry with herself. Keeping her feelings quiet was clearly going to hurt her in more ways than one and make it so much harder for her to say no to the things that she didn’t want to do.

  She wished she had it in her to simply turn around and walk away with no explanation, just head for home and spend the afternoon laying on the couch reading her book. Suki was tired of being responsible for other people’s feelings when she could hardly handle her own.

  The festivities were in full swing already and her mother was soon in the very center of things, spreading out all the meat she had bought to be cooked. Her father, carrying a great bowl of potatoes that her mother had prepared earlier, was smiling and greeting all his friends and fellow townspeople.

  Suki felt guilty; they were good people, kind people, well-liked people. Her own low feelings were surely her concern and not theirs.

  “Suki?” The voice behind her was instantly recognizable and she slowly turned to see Sonny Reynolds standing there, just inches from her.

  For some reason, she hadn’t expected to see him there. It wasn’t something she’d given a great deal of thought to, she just assumed that, as a newcomer, he wouldn’t be particularly interested in the celebration.

  “Oh, Mr. Reynolds,” she said a little surprised.

  “Why do you keep calling me Mr. Reynolds?” he asked and took a step closer.

  “Because t
hat’s your name, isn’t it?” she snapped waspishly.

  “Very clever, but I think you know what I mean.”

  “Do I?”

  “Suki, I never know where I am with you. You are either irritated by me or you like me and there doesn’t seem to be anything in between. I like you a lot, more than like you, but I wish you would just be honest with me.”

  “Honest?” Suki was suddenly furious. “I am expected to be honest with you when you are anything but?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” he said but there was a flicker of recognition in his eyes and Suki knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that he knew very well what she was referring to.

  “I can see that you do,” Suki said, wanting him to know that she was by no means the fool he had taken her for. “And since Gracie Thornhill is the most indiscreet young woman in town, it’s only fair for me to tell you that your secret was never going to be secret for long.”

  “But I don’t have a secret,” he said and surprised her by looking angry himself.

  His bright blue eyes looked a little darker and his brow furrowed as he stared at her intently.

  “I realize that I’m not quite like everybody else, I know this. But it’s an obvious thing and I think it would have been much better for me if you had just ignored me from the start. You didn’t need to go out of your way to make a fool of me, Mr. Reynolds. For heaven’s sake, you didn’t even have to accept my father’s invitation to dinner if you didn’t want it.”

  “But I wanted to come to dinner with your family, Suki. They’re nice people and kind,” he said exasperatedly. “And I wanted to spend time with you, too, I wanted to get to know you better. And yes, you’re right, you are not quite like everybody else, but I never tried to make a fool of you. I give up; isn’t that what you want?” he said and suddenly held his hands out to his sides, his palms facing the heavens. “You want me to get out of your way, Suki? Well, with pleasure,” Sonny said and shook his head vehemently. “And if you want to know why I never told you about dancing with Gracie, you didn’t exactly give me a chance to explain the first time, did you? Well, I guess I’ve got nothing else to say,” he said and with that he turned on his heel and walked away from her, heading further into the crowd of revelers.