by Merry Farmer
“All right,” Mr. West said and cleared his throat. He pushed his glasses up his nose. “The council will now vote on whether to shut down Sobel’s Pond to swimmers and to call in a scientific team to test the waters. All in favor?”
“Aye!” Lewis Jones, Samuel Kuhn, and the three men whose names Rebecca couldn’t remember raised their hands. A murmur floated through the observers.
“All opposed?” Mr. West asked, but anyone who could count already knew what the outcome would be.
“Nay.” Christian Avery, Delilah Reynolds, Rev. Andrews, and Mr. West himself raised their hands, but they were outvoted by one. By her father’s vote. If he had been there instead of being ill, the two sides would have been even and the action would have been delayed. No such luck.
“Well, then it looks as though Sobel’s Pond is closed until further notice,” Mr. West said, clearly not happy with the decision. “I’ll talk to Nathan and we’ll search for someone to test the water as soon as possible.”
“I can offer several suggestions,” Dr. Greene said from his bench, smug as a cat.
“Thank you, Dr. Greene,” Mr. West said, looking at the man over his glasses, “but the town council will find a neutral party to perform these tests.”
Dr. Greene lost his grin.
“Does anyone have any new business before we adjourn the meeting?” Mr. West asked.
The town council and those watching glanced around as if waiting for someone to come up with something.
“I’ve got a question.” One of the farmers, a Mr. Sulkes, who had a sick child, stood.
“Go ahead,” Mr. West said.
Mr. Sulkes broke into a sheepish grin. “Since Nathan Sobel is thinking of selling, anyone know how I might talk to him about buying?”
A few people chuckled. “I’d like to know about that, too!” someone else piped in.
“I’m sure he’ll be posting something about it soon,” Mr. West answered with a grin.
“No,” Lewis corrected him. “No, I think he’s already got a buyer. That’s what those phone calls were— Oh.” He flushed. “I guess I shouldn’t really talk about that, should I.”
“There you have it.” Mr. West smiled and spread his hands wide. “Any further business?” He was met by silence. “All right then, meeting adjourned.”
The town council and those watching stood in a rush of noise and heat. Amidst all the movement, Dr. Greene glared at Lewis Jones.
Chapter Six
Thomas stood with the rest of the people in the courthouse as the meeting adjourned. The whole affair had been an exercise in stubbornness, one that left him boiling with frustration. He attempted to squeeze Rebecca’s hand in comfort and solidarity. She pulled away from him.
He swallowed, fighting not to take her reluctance as another defeat, but his heart couldn’t take much more rejection.
“Are you all right?” Lily asked Rebecca. By the flash in her eyes, Lily was asking him the same question.
Rebecca continued to stare across the room, her eyes narrowed and her face pinched in thought. Thomas followed her line of sight to see what had her attention. He found her watching Dr. Greene. At last, she sighed and shook her head. “I just want to go home to my children, make sure they are well.”
Lily arched an eyebrow at him, waiting for his answer. Before he could give it, Christian marched over to join them.
“This place is run by a bunch of damned fools.” He touched the small of Lily’s back and looked down into the face of his sleeping son in her arms. “Reason stares them in the face and they ignore it.”
“Thank you for your efforts,” Thomas told him.
“Yes, thank you,” Rebecca added.
She glanced across the aisle to Dr. Greene again. The man was attempting to push his way through the exiting crowd to the door. His color was high and the irritation on his face was plain. It was far stronger than someone who had just won their point should have been displaying. It didn’t sit right with Thomas. None of it did.
“That man has been a bigoted idiot as long as I’ve known him,” Christian grumbled on. “Do you know, he has refused to treat Phineas Bell for injuries that could be deemed life-threatening on several occasions? Just because he dislikes him? What do you think of that?”
At the moment, Thomas was more enraged by the swirl of anger and hopelessness hovering around Rebecca than Dr. Greene’s breach of ethics.
“Rebecca, would you like me to walk you home now?” he asked.
She met his eyes with longing masked by hesitance. “Yes, please.”
Tiny sparks of hope filled him. He turned to Christian and Lily. “If you will excuse us.”
“I promise you—” Christian began as though about to launch another tirade.
“If you must be going then,” Lily answered Thomas, a trace of a smile on her lips and in her eyes. “Here, Christian, hold Kyle for a minute.”
“What? Me?” Christian was well and truly distracted as Lily handed baby Kyle off to him.
With a grin for his sister’s maneuver, he touched Rebecca’s elbow and steered her into the thinning line of people heading out the door.
By the time they made it outside and started across Main Street, Thomas’s amusement had vanished. The night was hot and oppressive, the moon bright and full, but defeat hung in the air. Rebecca remained deep in thought as they walked. With a twist of irony, Thomas found himself thinking that it would be a perfect night to steal her away for a midnight swim in the moonlit pond.
“Something isn’t right here,” she said when they made the turn onto Second Street.
“Several things aren’t right,” he added with a frown.
Rebecca glanced sideways at him. Her shoulders relaxed by a hair. To Thomas, that felt like a major victory.
“Hearing Dr. Greene say that the pond should be tested and reopened was not what I expected,” she went on, slowing her steps the closer they came to her parent’s house. “He’s more the sort to say it should be closed forever and to put up barricades and signs just to spite people.”
Thomas shrugged. “He can’t do that it if it isn’t his property.”
“But the town council could if it was in the best interest of public health and safety.”
“Which it isn’t, since there’s nothing wrong with the pond.”
She sighed. “There has to be something more to his intentions, something we’re overlooking.”
They stopped at the walk leading up to the McGee’s front porch. Rebecca chewed her lip, eyes still downcast, brow knit in frustrated thought. He wanted to reach out and smooth the creases from her face, to brush a lock of sweat-dampened hair away from her eyes.
“Sobel’s Pond means the world to me, Thomas,” she confessed. “I know it’s just a place, water and grass and dirt, but to me it’s more than that. It’s where I laughed as a girl, before Bo. It’s where I ran to when Bo crossed the line, where I…where I went to hide with the children when he was on a tear.”
“I didn’t know that.” He was both touched and incensed by her story. If Bo Turner ever showed his face in Cold Springs again….
“That pond is like my heart,” Rebecca went on. “I know I shouldn’t challenge a man like Dr. Greene in public the way I did, but I can’t stay silent anymore.” She tilted her head up and met his eyes.
The passion behind her anger, the pleading for him to understand her, sent longing straight through him.
“You can challenge him and you should,” he answered. “You have been silenced for too long, Rebecca, but you have fire in your belly. No one has a right to stop that.”
He leaned in and brushed the lock of hair away from the hot skin of her face. Her chest rose as she caught her breath. Desire pulsed through him and he inched closer to her, eyes fixed on her lips, mouth softening to kiss her.
She backed away as quickly as if he had raised a hand to her.
“I’m sorry,” she said and looked down. “I can’t.”
“You can,”
he insisted. “You are a woman with life and passion in her.”
She shook her head. “I am a mother with responsibilities before her and shame behind her.”
Impatience got the better of him. He stepped toward her, catching her around the waist and pulling her against him. The softness of her stomach and breasts felt so right against the tension of his chest.
“I know that you have feelings for me,” he murmured, low and rough. “Even if those feelings are purely carnal. I can see them in your eyes, in your breath and in your body. I don’t mind them. I honor them.”
“Thomas.” His name sounded tortured on her lips. The lines of her face were pinched and sad, but she spread her hands across his chest and drew in a breath.
“I have been searching for you my whole life, Rebecca,” he continued. “My heart beats so that I can serve you, so that I can love you. I can see that you want me. If you only want my body for now so that your soul remains protected, I will gladly give you just that. But I want to give you so much more.”
“Oh, Thomas.” She squeezed her eyes shut. He could feel her trembling in his arms, and yet she didn’t pull away.
He seized his chance, cupped her hot cheek in his hand, and leaned in for a kiss. He brought his mouth down gently on top of hers, savoring the sweet, salty taste of her skin, the catch of her breath.
“I do want you,” she whispered. “God help me, but I do!”
She surged against him, sliding her arms around his back. He deepened his kiss to meet her passion. She sparkled with it. Her lips parted and with a sweet boldness their tongues touched. The rightness of it filled him with heat. He wanted nothing more than to hold her and kiss her and comfort her forever.
“Stop!”
The shout that came from the porch jolted both of them to their senses. They flew apart as Grover shouted again.
“Stop! What are you doing?” Fury was hot in his young eyes as he descended the porch stairs and marched down the short path to them. “Don’t touch my mother like that!”
“Grover, I—”
Before Thomas could explain, the boy reached him and threw a punch. It connected with Thomas’s jaw with surprising force, knocking him sideways.
“Grover!” Rebecca gasped.
“No one disrespects my mother like that, no one!” Grover railed on, fists still clenched and another few punches in his eyes.
Thomas straightened, hands held up in defense and appeasement. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to your mother at all, son.”
“And don’t you call me son! I am not your son. I’m nobody’s son!”
He took another swing. This time Thomas was fast enough to catch Grover’s fist and twist his arm behind his back to neutralize him.
“I’ve been in more fights than you want to know, Grover,” Thomas spoke quietly into the boy’s ear. “You don’t want to challenge me any more than I want to challenge you.”
“Yes, I do! Get off of me and I’ll show you!” He struggled in Thomas’s iron grip.
“Grover, what has come over you!” Rebecca shouted. She had recovered from her initial shock and now a fury that matched Grover’s own had her eyes bright and glassy. “Thomas is our friend! He has helped this family in more ways than you know! Disrespect? Why, he’s the first man who has ever shown me a lick of respect at all! He listens to me and considers my opinion. He makes me feel like I’m strong and smart and alive. And you answer that by hitting him? I did not raise you to be the brute that your father was!”
Thomas expected Grover to rail back at his mother. Instead the boy crumpled in his arms, defeated. Sullen heat still poured off of him, but now he stared at the ground.
“I don’t blame you one bit for defending your mother,” Thomas said, letting him go. “It is admirable for you to do so. But be wary of picking the wrong fight.”
As soon as he felt he was loose, Grover jerked away. He met his mother’s eyes for only a moment before glancing to Thomas with a combination of anger and consideration. A beat later he took off running down Second Street.
“Grover!” Rebecca called after him.
“Let him go.” Thomas stilled her with a hand on her arm.
“Oh, dear!”
They turned to find Eve Andrews standing at the top of the porch with Helen in her arms. Thomas had forgotten there might be another adult in the house to witness the scene. Eve’s cheeks were pink with heat and awkwardness.
Rebecca sent Thomas a miserable, apologetic glance, then started toward the porch with a sigh. Thomas followed her.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” Rebecca said to Eve. She reached the porch and took Helen from Eve’s arms. The toddler clung to her mother as if she knew something was wrong.
“It must be a difficult time for him.” Eve excused the entire scene with a kind smile for both Rebecca and Thomas. “Boys will be boys.”
Thomas rubbed his jaw, which was now throbbing. “I’d say he’s more of a man at this point.”
They all fell into awkward silence.
At length, Eve straightened and said, “Things have actually been quiet here tonight. Before you came home, Grover was reading, Helen was playing, and Rachel and Lorraine are sleeping nicely now. They seem so much better,” she added.
That comment brought a smile to Rebecca’s face. “I’m so glad. Thank you for watching them, Eve.”
“It was my pleasure.”
With a final smile and a hug for Rebecca, Eve left the porch and started up Second Street on her way home. Rebecca watched after her, scanning the swiftly falling night for any sign that Grover was on his way back.
“He will come home when he is ready to come home.” Thomas tried to comfort her. “He may be angry at the moment, but from everything I’ve seen, Grover is an intelligent, responsible young man.”
“He’s also a hothead and a little too fearless for his own good,” Rebecca said.
A grin touched Thomas’s lips. “I wonder where he gets that from.”
Rebecca glanced to him with a blink that became a blush. More awkward silence followed.
“Thomas, I—”
“No, there’s no need to say it.” He lowered his eyes. “I was out of line. I let my passions get the better of me. I’ll take myself home now.”
“No!”
He snapped his eyes up to meet hers. His blood pumped faster in his veins.
Rebecca drew in a deep breath. “I…I want you to stay. I need you to….”
His mind filled in a thousand things she could need him to do—comfort her, care for her, steady her, love her. His body responded to the very idea that she was letting him in, if only a little bit.
“Please,” she finished. “Come inside.”
The house was a still, calm contrast to the town council meeting and the fury of Grover. A grandfather clock ticked in the parlor downstairs as they made their way up creaking stairs to the second floor. The faint hush of a summer evening giving way to night drifted in through the open windows. The heat inside the house was maddening, but a breeze managed to circulate the air just enough.
“I need to settle Helen for the night,” Rebecca said as they reached the hall at the top of the stairs.
“Do you mind if I check on the girls?” Thomas asked.
“I was hoping you would. I’ll be there in a minute.”
They parted ways, Rebecca taking Helen to her small room and Thomas slipping in to the girls’ room across the hall.
Even the sick room had a sense of peace about it now, of answers and recovery. Rachel and Lorraine both lay in their beds, breathing deeply. Thomas removed his suit jacket and draped it across the chair between the beds. He bent first over Rachel to feel her forehead. She was considerably cooler now. In the dim light of one low lamp she seemed to have regained her color, but he would have to wait for morning to be sure. Lorraine was still a bit warm and her lips were cracked with thirst, but it was better to let her sleep than to wake her just to drink some water.
He swal
lowed, only to find his throat tight with emotion. Rebecca’s girls were as precious as she was. They needed more than just medical care. They needed love and stability, just as Grover needed guidance. They needed a father.
“They’ll be all right,” Rebecca spoke softly from the doorway.
Thomas straightened and smiled at her.
“I just feel it, you know? As their mother. They’re going to be all right now. Thanks to you.”
She stepped further into the room, switching places with Thomas. She kissed each of her sleeping daughter’s foreheads, adjusting the sheet under each of their chins to be certain they were safe and settled. It was a beautiful picture of family and serenity and everything Thomas had ever wanted.
Rebecca tiptoed back to where he stood in the doorway, almost a part of the scene but not quite. They slipped into the hall and she shut the door behind them.
“I can’t tell you what your care and concern means to me,” she said. She rested her left hand on his chest and stared at it, stared at her bare hand without any ring on it. “Thank you.”
“Thank you?” he asked. His heart raced under her touch.
She looked up and met his eyes. “For making them better. For putting my mind at ease. For…for taking me seriously.” The peace in her expression faltered. “You can’t understand what it’s like to be a mother, to want to give up yours happiness for theirs.”
“No, I can’t,” he agreed. He brushed a hand along the line of her arm, balancing precariously between respect and the urge to ravish her.
She swallowed. “I can’t give up everything though. Leaving Bo taught me that. But…I’m so filled with…with anger and longing and confusion.” She peeked hesitantly up at him. “I don’t know who I am anymore or what I should do.”
