by Rosalyn West
She closed her eyes, picturing Jonah Glendower. Handsome, reed-slender, awkwardly self-conscious, bright, always a kind word and quick smile on his lips, never a glower clouding the sincerity of his gaze. A scholar, not a scrapper like his older brother. Why hadn’t she ever appreciated his goodness, his strength while blinded by Reeve’s blatant appeal? She’d taken the quiet, gentle Jonah for granted, and, now, there was no way to make that up to him.
Take this ring and be my wife. Make me the happiest man on earth.
She accepted his proposal begrudgingly, spitefully, because she couldn’t have Reeve. How ashamed she was of her shallow motives for promising herself to a fine man. He hadn’t deserved the rebound of her affection.
Just as she failed him when he was alive, she vowed to honor him in his death.
Jonah Glendower died a hero, and she would be his living tribute for the rest of her days. She would act his widow as surely as if they’d been wed. She would mourn him and avenge him as was her duty, to make up for her frivolous disregard for such things when they would have meant something.
And as such, Reeve Garrett could be nothing more than the object of her scorn and hatred. There would be no weakness where he was concerned. She owed her determined stand to the memory of Jonah, to her father, to all those who’d died defending their homeland.
Reeve Garrett had had his chance to hold her heart.
Now, he would know only her contempt.
Chapter 3
Zeus stood alone in the renowned Glendower stables. Stalls once holding the finest thoroughbreds in the country were empty of all but soiled bedding. Harness tracings oiled with pride until the leather reflected mirror-bright, hung dry and cracked in disarray. Such neglect, even by him, would have earned a horsewhipping from the squire, who held as much pride in the state of his stables as in the prestige of his home … perhaps more.
“Easy, boy,” Reeve crooned as he slipped in beside the animal. Velvety lips plucked affectionately at his shirt buttons. With brush in hand, Reeve began soothing repetitions along the dark hide, coaxing a lustrous sheen. Aside from the occasional twitch, the animal stood quietly, enjoying the sense of camaraderie between man and mount. They had a long history, bound by a promise not always easily kept. Reeve promised to see to the animal’s care if Zeus brought him safely home.
“Feels good being in for the night, don’t it, boy?”
Ears pricked forward at the sound of his low tones.
“Yessir, was a time when I wondered if we’d ever be dry again, but here we are, roof over our heads, snug as bugs. What more could we be wantin’?”
Zeus tossed his great head, throwing it over the divider to the next stall as if pointing out its emptiness.
“Company, eh?” The big stallion wasn’t alone in that wish. Unbidden, the image of Patrice Sinclair tantalized. He shook off the unlikely mirage. “Well, you got me through the thick of it, didn’t you, boy? Least I can do is turn you out to the best grass this side of heaven, with your pick of the fillies.”
“Think he understands you?”
Though startled by the intrusion of his father’s voice, Reeve didn’t look around. He stretched down to pick up a curry comb and went to work on the shaggy mane. “Why, sure. Me and Zeus have shared many a conversation over the last four years. He’s a fine listener.”
“Well, don’t go promising him his pick of the mares just yet. I’m afraid he’s the only blooded animal the Glade has.”
He paused in his movement of the comb. “Zeus don’t belong to the Glade. He’s mine.” A quiet statement of fact.
“And you don’t belong to the Glade either, I suppose.”
Reeve didn’t answer his father’s curt rejoinder. Instead, he squatted down to prop one of the stallion’s hocks upon his knee to pick at the hoof. Zeus fidgeted, sensing his tension.
“It’s good to have you back.”
Again, Reeve said nothing, remembering their parting words after he’d brought Jonah home.
“I give you a home and this is how you repay me! My son is dead. You should have been there to protect him instead of helping the enemy pull the trigger. It wasn’t enough to put a knife in my back with your betrayal. Now you’ve stabbed me through the heart. Do you hate me so much? You’ve not only murdered my son, you’ve killed the future of the Glade. You ungrateful bastard! You’ll never have what was his. Never!”
Now that same man who’d ordered him off the Glade at gunpoint, refusing to hear what he would say in his own defense, was extending the olive branch in truce after using it to whip him.
“You haven’t said how long you’ll be staying.”
“No, I haven’t.”
More silence, ragged around the edges with strain.
“The Glade could use you, Reeve.”
“The Glade?” He glanced up then, intense gaze demanded a more personal concession. Getting it, after a long pause.
“I could use you.”
Showing no sign that his father’s admission pleased him, Reeve bent back over the hoof. “To do what?”
“Rebuild.”
“What makes you think the Glade matters to me one way or another?”
For a moment, he sensed his father’s panic, a cold, shaky thing, smelling of sweat and fear. It ran through the troops like a fever during the quiet before a charge, in that instant where losing all meant more than loyalty, more than pride. A hesitation when strong men faced the reality of having no future. And it either broke them or made them more determined.
Byron Glendower didn’t break easily.
“Because you’re my son,” was the bulwark he threw up before him. “You can’t pretend with me, Reeve. I’ve seen you hunger after these acres all your life.”
Reeve flung the pick he was using across the stall, the noise startling both man and animal. With hands gripping the knees of his Union trousers, Reeve glared up with uncharacteristic ferocity.
“Your son? Really? Now that you’ve got nothing left, you want to embrace me with sudden fatherly love? Or are you jus’ planning to use me like you did my mama, to get what you want?”
His father slapped him. Reeve didn’t move to put a hand to his burning cheek. It flushed a damning red while Byron seethed down at him. Never had father put a harsh hand to either of his boys, and the mood lay raw as an exposed wound between them.
“Stay or go,” Glendower spat out at last. “I don’t give a damn what you do. I don’t need you to survive.”
Then Reeve laid the cold truth of it bare. “Yes, you do.”
For all his unimposing stature, Byron Glendower puffed out like an adder, all bluff and impotent threat. Reeve saw through it, and for the first time, saw his father as someone vulnerable. It shook him, but only for a moment.
“I’ll stay … because of Jonah, not you.”
Byron’s hands clenched in the front of Reeve’s faded shirt, twisting, jerking him up with fierce authority even though the younger was now the bigger and more powerful man. And there wasn’t the slightest sign of weakness in his narrowed eyes.
“Don’t you ever—ever mention his name to me again. You hear me, boy? You don’t deserve to.”
Reeve never moved. His eyes were flinty, his expression cold and remote. He rocked back against the stall when released. The two men regarded one another over this newly drawn line, both breathing hard, both unwilling to budge. The squire’s jaw worked on words best not said, and with difficulty, he kept it that way. Because he knew, as Reeve knew, that he couldn’t keep the Glade going on his own.
It wasn’t until the angry squire stormed out of the barn that Reeve sank slowly down onto his haunches, back flush to the wall, fists lashing back to thud loudly against that unyielding wood. Then with bruised knuckles pressed to his mouth, he expelled a heavy breath and, with it, his hostility.
It wasn’t going to be easy at all.
She watched him move through the swatches of light, pitching soiled straw with an almost fevered urgency.
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nbsp; He was wearing the hated uniform trousers with just the tops of his worn long johns above them. Sleeves were pushed up over muscular forearms, buttons undone to display a sheen upon his firm, broad chest. He worked tirelessly, like one of her father’s machines. He moved like nothing she’d ever seen—strength, grace, fury all wrapped together in a sinewy coil.
With a vengeance.
He was angry. She could see it in the tight set of his jaw, in the furrows plowed deep where frowning brows drew together. A similar mood surrounded Squire Glendower when he’d returned to the house. She wondered who or what had started the fight. She’d never known Reeve to push a confrontation with the squire before, but now, these were different times, different men.
The difference was what drew her to the barns. She wanted … no needed—to prove something to herself. That she could be near him and not desire him. That she could look upon temptation and not give in like the impulsive child she’d once been. Reeve Garrett was no longer just the object of forbidden lusting, a dangerous symbol of what was denied her, and therefore all the more appealing. He was a reminder of what they’d lost and why, of what she’d lost. He was an enemy to heart and soul, a demon that must be faced or run from.
Even now as she watched him covertly, covetously, her pulse raced faster, stirred into a frenzy as never before.
He looked up suddenly, features registering surprise, as if her motives were completely transparent and her desire plain to see. But then his face settled back to its unreadable mask once more as he leaned indolently upon the pitchfork handle, mocking her tension with his ease.
“Something you wanted, Miz Sinclair?”
Once there was, she could have replied. Once, there was something she’d wanted quite desperately.
Instead, her expression hardened with displeasure. “Mama wanted to know if you were coming up to the house for lunch.”
“Are you your mama’s errand girl now?”
She refused to be baited. “Are you coming or not?”
“Not. At least, not now. I don’t care to be fed at saber point. But thank your mama kindly for the invite.” He wiped one sweaty forearm across his brow, and, as her gaze followed the movement, her mouth went totally dry. Had she been crazy to think she could ever be unaffected by him?
“Trice, what happened to my mama?”
The last thing she wanted to do was discuss something so intimate with him. She balked. “You should ask the squire.”
“He’s not the one who tended my mama’s grave. You are. Guess that makes you about the only one who gave a damn. How did she die?”
Patrice swallowed hard against a tide of sorrow, her tone husky with it when she spoke at last.
“I guess you could say she was a casualty of war. A band of soldiers came for the horses. They had the squire at gunpoint. I don’t think they expected any other resistance. Abbie stood in the door of the stable with a pitchfork and told them they’d have to go through her. They did.”
Reeve’s eyes closed briefly, the muscles of his face spasming. “Union soldiers?”
“No. Our boys. It wasn’t intentional. One of the men got behind her and knocked her down with the butt of his rifle. She never got up. They all felt real bad about it.”
“But that didn’t stop ’em from taking the horses, did it?”
She didn’t back down from the crack of bitterness in his words. “No.”
She watched his shoulders slump, just a fleeting show of grief too overwhelming to contain. In that instant, she fought the need to go to him, the need to put her arms about his broad shoulders to share a common bond of mourning. But to do so would compromise her promise not to give him comfort—one didn’t provide comfort to one’s enemies.
To her relief, the weakness lasted only a second or two. Then Reeve straightened and his taut posture made it easier for her to control sympathies he would most likely reject.
“I’ve got work to do,” he said gruffly, turning his back on her.
“I’m sorry, Reeve.” It came out unintentionally, but she was glad she’d told him when he paused and looked back through a gaze stripped down to naked emotion. In a blink, the look was gone, and his reply was carefully phrased to reveal as little as possible.
“I’m sorry, too, Patrice. About your father, about a lot of things. But I can’t change ’em.”
She pleated and repleated the folds of her plain skirt within the clutch of her hands. She had to know.
“Would you, Reeve, if you could?”
“No.”
That one word, two little letters, drove a wedge between them, hammering it deep with the strength of his contention, burying it with the sweeping force of her resentment.
What else was there to say?
She’d gotten as far as dragging out her big trunk and was stuffing her sensible gowns inside. Why had she thought he’d changed? That she could change the way she felt about him?
Once again, she’d given him every chance to win her over … and he hadn’t. Purposefully or foolishly, did it matter? He wouldn’t admit he’d been mistaken, not about the path he followed, not about the result of choice, not about letting her go.
And what made her mad, truly, lividly, hopping mad, was that she wasn’t sure which failing bothered her the most.
She caught her ring in the lace cuff of one of her gowns. The setting snagged, tearing the delicate tracery, ruining the elaborate pattern. She stared at it in dismay, knowing there was no way to repair it, no money to replace it. Her carelessness cost her dearly. Then she forgot about the dress, and touched the ring, thinking about other careless losses. She swallowed down the burn of tears at the back of her throat and took a deep, cleansing breath.
What was she doing? Running away wasn’t going to solve things. There was no sanctuary away from the Glade. Fright trembled within her breast. What was she going to do? Stay here where she’d be constantly reminded of her ruined hopes and traitorous dreams? Where her days would be filled with the probability of running into him? Where her nights would be flooded with remembrances of what might have been?
She should have been Mrs. Jonah Glendower, mistress of this house and heir to its fortune. She should have had no worries about a crop lying fallow, about a house crumbling in disrepair, about caring for her mother and assuming a man’s role. She couldn’t stand begging favors, especially from Reeve. Not when everything could have been … theirs together.
She tossed her crumpled gown to the floor as angry panic shivered along her slender form. Helplessness scared her. She’d always had the strength and judgment of her father and brother. She was too practical for a female, too independent-minded to do things the easy way. How she wished for an easier way now, and for a less realistic view of how things were and would be. It was no blessing to have an insight into the future.
Sighing, she picked up the dress, brushed it out, and restored it to the clothes cupboard. She faced facts, unpleasant or no. Her mother couldn’t go back to the Manor, where there were few comforts and no safety. She was too frail, and Patrice was not fool enough to think she could protect and provide for them. The Glade was their only haven. No way would she let Reeve Garrett chase them out of it. He’d taken everything else, he and his repressive Federal bullies. He owed her the small sense of security she found under this roof.
And she owed it to him to make the consequences of what he’d done a constant abrasion upon what little conscience he could claim. If he couldn’t—wouldn’t—change the past, she’d see he was ever reminded of it. Of the pain he’d caused. Of the ruination he’d allowed to fall upon them. She wouldn’t let him wear his guilt so casually. God, help her, she’d see he strangled in it.
And there was only one place to sanction that promise. Not in any church, but rather in her own chapel. Her home. She’d feel better there, stronger, more certain of her choices. But getting there was a problem. The Manor was miles away, and the only transportation belonged to Reeve.
Patrice smiled tightly.
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How fitting that he should provide for her travel after causing her distress.
But she knew Reeve, and she knew he wouldn’t just saddle the animal for her and let her go on her way. Not alone. Not without explanation. Not without humbling herself to make the necessary request, which she was in no mood to do. So she watched and waited. And at last, Reeve left the barn area to return to his distant cabin.
She ran quickly, lightly, with a trace of her old impulsive recklessness down to the paddock where Reeve had replaced broken slats and rails so Zeus could trot about the enclosure. The animal paused, pawing cautiously at the ground when she approached, bridle in hand. But, a well-trained beast, it came at her soft whistle and allowed her to slip the straps into place. She’d ridden all her life, both with ladylike decorum and hoydenish disregard. She chose the later, vaulting up onto the horse’s wide back in an awkward bunch of petticoats to sit astride.
The big stallion responded easily to the pressure of her knees and guiding movement of the reins, but when Reeve’s shout—at first anxious, then angry—sounded behind them, the animal hesitated, drawn to its master’s voice. A brisk thump of her heels sent them galloping down the road, leaving Reeve behind in whorls of dust.
The sight of fire-scorched brick brought back an unexpected rush of horror and helplessness. Patrice slid down off Zeus’s back, her knees buckling weakly. Gripping the animal’s mane, she pressed her face against the beast’s warm flesh until the anguish ebbed, until the panic subsided and the nightmarish pictures stopped replaying in her head. Only then could she look up and see what could be, what once was, instead of the sad neglect that stood before her now.
Still, it hurt. It pained to see her beloved home abandoned in disrepair.
