The Land Beneath Us

by Sarah Sundin

  He bolted to standing. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “By myself. See you later.” He marched out, tossed a wave to elderly Mrs. Trevithick in the kitchen, and jogged downstairs from the flat above the fish-and-chips shop.

  He ran alongside the Bude Canal, past holiday cottages and tourist shops. The locals were used to seeing Rangers running. Even if it was Christmas Day.

  Clay ran faster, hating himself for getting fooled by another woman—and hating himself for thinking the worst of Leah before he had the facts.

  He crossed the footbridge over the lock at the end of the canal and jogged onto the beach. The tide was way out, and Clay sank to his knees on the sand under the overcast sky. Waves crashed before him, and low green bluffs curled around the beach.

  “Lord, please let me be wrong.” He opened Leah’s letter again.

  On November 2, Darlene accused me of stealing twenty dollars from her. The money was my own pay from the library, but Mrs. Perry believed Darlene and evicted me from the boardinghouse. It’s taken me all this time to work up the courage to tell you.

  You see, Clay, Mrs. Perry had a reason to believe Darlene. When I was younger, I often stole. I stole food. I stole lovely things that other children misplaced. I stole lonely things that other children mistreated. A few months ago, I mentioned this to Darlene, and she told Mrs. Perry when she accused me of stealing her pay.

  I haven’t stolen anything in years, and the Lord has forgiven me and has wiped my slate clean. However, Darlene and Mrs. Perry will never see me as anything but a thieving orphan. I’ll understand if you see me the same way. When you proposed, I should have told you about my past. I knew you’d been gravely injured by theft, and telling you would have been kind and fair. I’m sure you never would have married me if you’d known I used to steal. Since I didn’t tell you at that time, I’ll understand if you should annul the marriage.

  For future correspondence, see the address below. Mr. and Mrs. Bellamy are letting me rent a little house on their property.

  Please know I’m sorry for all I’ve done.

  With deep regret,

  Leah

  The scarf itched and choked, and Clay tugged it off and dropped it to the sand.

  Leah had a history of stealing?

  Who was she? Was she an “Allotment Annie,” one of those women who tricked soldiers into marrying them so they could collect the allotment, maybe even the life insurance?

  Clay rested his hands on his knees, stared at the golden sand, and groaned. No, of course not. She hadn’t tricked him. He was the one who’d pushed for marriage.

  He sighed, smoothed the letter, and tucked it inside his sweater.

  Growing up, he’d always had everything he needed. What if he hadn’t? What if he’d spent his childhood in an orphanage? Or on the streets? Would he have turned to theft? “I don’t know, Lord. I don’t know what I would have done in her place.”

  The scarf lay rejected in a heap beside him. Clay drew it across his lap and brushed away grains of sand.

  He couldn’t blame her for not telling him earlier. First, it was all in her past, in her youth, forgiven and overcome. Second, if everyone thought like Darlene and Mrs. Perry, she was wise to keep quiet.

  He dug his fingers into the knit where Leah’s fingers had worked. Telling him had taken courage, especially since she thought he’d annul the marriage. Why would she think that? Why would she think he’d abandon her and make her give up that little baby?

  Realization slammed into his chest. Abandonment was all she knew. Why would she expect anything else from him?

  He had to reassure her. Clay pushed to his feet and draped the scarf around his neck.

  A chill wind slapped him in the face.

  November 15? She’d written that letter a month and a half ago. By saving her letter for a Christmas treat, he’d left her in the lurch.

  She wouldn’t receive his reply for another week or two, maybe four.

  That wouldn’t do. He marched back across the sand. He’d send a cablegram today.

  No, it was Christmas. First thing tomorrow morning. He’d make the message vague enough for all the eyes that would see it, yet clear enough for her.

  “I won’t abandon you, Leah.” He crossed the footbridge and broke into a run, desperate to write his reply. “I won’t.”

  23

  CAMP FORREST

  FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1944

  Leah brushed a finger along the book spines in the 720 section of the library. Architecture. How she’d hoped to peruse that section.

  She’d never sift through Camp Forrest’s collection again. Dr. Adams wanted her to quit now that she was in her third trimester, and today was her last day. Since everyone thought she was only five months pregnant, Leah stated that her recent surgery had made the doctor cautious.

  Her fingers halted on a book on early American architecture. What if it contained a photo of one of the buildings in her memory? She would never see it.

  Leah sighed and shelved two volumes from her cart. Hoping to find clues about her hometown and surname in library books had been naïve. Her childhood memories were foggy and sparse and distorted by time.

  Although she would never stop yearning to know her name and to find her sisters, bearing the Paxton name and feeling her daughter’s tiny kicks eased the ache.

  “Leah Paxton,” she whispered, and she wheeled her cart to the next aisle.

  Thank goodness she could keep that name. The arrival of Clay’s cablegram had nearly torn her heart out. She was preparing herself for a telegram come spring, not right after Christmas.

  But the message soothed her qualms: “NO NEED TO WORRY STOP NOTHING WILL CHANGE STOP LETTER COMING STOP YOURS CLAY.”

  Leah shelved books in the 800s. She hadn’t received that letter, but she no longer feared annulment. And he’d never signed his letters “yours” before. How could one word fill her with such warmth and joy?

  Her cart empty, she pushed it toward the circulation desk. At the card catalog, Miss Mayhew chatted quietly with Miss Elliott, who had started the first of the year.

  Miss Elliott had graduated from the library school at Emory University and could catalog, research, and make acquisitions, as well as work the circulation desk, a more qualified librarian than Leah and a suitable replacement.

  The two graduate librarians laughed softly about something. Already they were colleagues. Leah had never been more than an assistant.

  Grief pooled in Leah’s lungs. Miss Elliott was living the life Leah had wanted. It would never be hers, because she’d been orphaned and abandoned and assaulted.

  Why did people like Miss Mayhew and Miss Elliott receive all the good things in life? Why did Leah receive all the bad things? Why did everyone mistreat her?

  A flutter of kicks in her belly, and Leah drew a deep breath to calm down.

  Clay didn’t mistreat her. And her original dream might have died, but a new one had formed—raising this sweet child and giving her a happy home.

  Leah walked at a fast clip down Moore Street under a moonless sky. At eleven o’clock, few lights shone from windows. An icy breeze wafted around her legs, and a bush beside her rustled.

  Leah scooted away, her heart hammering. Every shadow, every noise made the scar on her chest throb.

  An MP escorted her every night from the library to the bus stop at Camp Forrest. But no one escorted her the three long blocks from the bus stop to her home.

  Was the wolf still out there? He’d wanted her dead, and he’d failed. Was he stationed at the base? Or had he shipped out with one of the many units that had trained at Camp Forrest?

  The Bellamy house stood on the corner of Washington and Moore. In daytime, a cheery brick home. At night, dark and brooding. Leah inched into the backyard, watching for unfamiliar shapes in the victory garden and by the chicken coop.

  Praying, she dashed to the little house. She thrust her key in the lock, flung open the doo
r, turned on a lamp, and threw the deadbolt. She might be the only person in Tullahoma who kept her doors locked, day and night.

  Leah sighed and leaned back against the door.

  Everyone assumed Leah loved the privacy of her new little home, but she wasn’t used to sleeping in a room alone. In a house alone. With straw-thin doors and windows and walls that would succumb to one puff of the wolf’s foul breath.

  She could still feel his darkness crushing her, pounding, ripping, humiliating.

  “No. No.” Leah pressed her fists to her chest. “I’m home. I’m safe. The Lord is with me. The Lord is with me.”

  When her heart rate finally settled down, she hung her hat and brown swing coat on the hook.

  A flash of white on the linoleum—a letter! Rita Sue always slipped Leah’s mail under the door. Oh, how she needed a distraction. The airmail envelope edged by diagonal red and blue stripes signaled a letter from Clay.

  “It’s from your daddy, baby girl.” Leah lowered herself to squatting and picked up the letter. The postmark read December 26, the same date as the cablegram.

  “Please, Lord. Please let this be his reply.” She settled into the rocking chair Mrs. Whipple from church had loaned her.

  Leah devoured the first line: “My dear wife”—with wife underlined.

  Relieved laughter welled up. He’d never addressed her that way. Always simply “Dear Leah.”

  The next line read “I want to make one thing clear—I will never abandon you. I made vows to you and to our child, and I will never break them.”

  “Thank you, Lord. Thank you.” With that security, she could bear any censure.

  I admit your confession struck me, since my life has been altered by theft.

  However, please don’t feel bad that you didn’t tell me you used to steal. You were young, it was long ago, and you’ve changed—so it was never any of my business. Seeing how Darlene and Mrs. Perry reacted, I don’t blame you for not telling me.

  As for your past theft, there’s nothing for me to forgive. First, you did me no harm. Second, I understand why you stole things. Yes, it was wrong, but it stemmed from your compassionate heart that hates to see anyone or anything abandoned. That sweet empathy is one of your greatest strengths.

  Third, it’s all in your past. In your youth! You’ve confessed and changed, and that isn’t who you are anymore. You told me when you could have easily kept silent. I admire your courage and integrity.

  Thinking through this illuminated a dark area in my soul. When I first told you about my brothers, you said you could understand why I hadn’t forgiven them. I was taken aback, because I thought I had forgiven them.

  You saw through my polite words. Although I’ve forgiven them on the surface, deep inside I still resent them.

  It was easy to forgive you because there was no personal injury, I understood your motives, and you repented long ago.

  Both Wyatt and Adler did cause me injury, and neither has repented. I understand Wyatt’s motives—he feared for his life and needed to get out of town. But I’ll never understand Adler’s motives. Sure, he was grieving Oralee, he was angry that I’d spoiled his revenge on Wyatt, and he was drunk, but to do what he did? I’ll never understand.

  So Wyatt only meets one of my criteria, and Adler meets none.

  However, my criteria don’t matter. Only God’s do.

  Jesus didn’t say to forgive people only if you understand why they sinned. He didn’t say to forgive only if people are remorseful and they change.

  He said to forgive, and he said not forgiving is a sin. So guess what, Leah? I’m a rotten sinner.

  I have a whole lot of pondering and praying to do. I need to figure out what it means to forgive, to go past saying the words to meaning them. How do I stop resenting them? I don’t know, but I’m fixing to find out.

  I tell you what, little wife of mine—because that’s what you are and that’s what you’ll remain till death do us part. Pray that I’ll be able to forgive my brothers before it’s too late, and I’ll pray that you can see yourself as the fine young woman you are and not as a thieving orphan. Sound fair?

  Take care of yourself and our baby.

  Yours,

  Clay

  Leah pressed the letter to her chest. “I will. I’ll pray for you.”

  She hurt for him—for the pain his brothers had caused and any additional pain she’d inflicted. Yet she basked in his security. He wouldn’t annul the marriage. He called her his little wife. He signed it “Yours” again.

  He wasn’t perfect, but he was a man of his word, honest, open, and determined to forgive those who had set his life on a course he hadn’t wanted.

  Why had the Lord brought such a man to befriend her, to save her life, and to give her a family?

  She held the letter before her face, longing to inhale his essence. “Lord, help me, but I love him.”

  24

  ISLE OF WIGHT, ENGLAND

  SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 1944

  “That’s the way. Y’all can do it.” Clay shielded his eyes from the sunshine glancing off the white chalk cliffs. In the chilly afternoon, dozens of Rangers climbed ropes up the two-hundred-foot slopes on the Isle of Wight.

  Whatever mission Gen. Dwight Eisenhower had in mind for Rudder’s Rangers, it had to involve cliffs.

  Clay’s boots slipped on the large pebbles on the beach, and he dug in his toes. The tall lace-up Corcoran jump boots worn by the 2nd Rangers had led to multiple scuffles with paratroopers, who claimed only they had the right to the footwear. But scaling cliffs without a safety line was no less dangerous than jumping from a plane with a parachute.

  A loud cuss, and a man tumbled fifteen feet to the beach—Manfred Brady.

  Clay scrambled over to give aid, but Brady stood, shaking his meaty fist and blaming his squad members for his fall.

  “Hothead.” Clay returned to the foot of the rope he’d soon ascend.

  Since Christmas, he’d scrutinized the men who’d been in the battalion since Camp Forrest. Could any of them be Leah’s assailant or the murderer?

  He had little to go by. Medium height and build. Leah had noticed dark hair under the cap, but in low light even medium shades looked dark.

  At first Clay had concentrated on hotheads. But Leah’s assailant had obviously tracked her routines, lain in wait, and lured her by turning on the light in the storage room. That spoke of a cold and calculating man.

  If the Florida murderer was a Ranger, he must have sneaked out at night and rowed into town, since they’d never had leave before the girl’s disappearance.

  “Paxton, you’re up.” Lombardi held out the rope.

  “Yes, Sergeant.” He made sure his bayonet was loose in its scabbard in case he needed it, then grabbed the rope.

  Up he went, hand over callused hand. In gym he’d always been good at rope-climbing, but he’d always feared falling and breaking his neck.

  Not now, and he grinned. He wouldn’t die in a fall. Even if he fell, he wouldn’t be injured badly enough to keep him out of the invasion. His dream freed him to climb just as it had freed him to marry Leah.

  Chalk and sandstone scraped his hands and fell away from beneath his feet. His breath was hard but steady, and his muscles announced their presence without pain.

  To either side, Rangers in fatigues ascended, calm and steady. They knew they were strong, they knew they were good, and they knew this was for a purpose.

  About ten feet to the top, and Clay savored the cool air and the sounds of surf, seagulls, and soldiers.

  The rope went slack.

  Clay cried out and grabbed at the cliff with hands and feet, scrabbling for a grip.

  Chalk gave way under his fingers, and he slid, the slight outward slope slowing his fall. “Help me, Lord!”

  The bayonet! Clay whipped it from the scabbard and stabbed it into the cliff.

  It held.

  “Thank you.” He groped around with his feet and his free hand until he had a soli
d hold.

  “Paxton!” Lombardi yelled up to him. “You all right?”

  “Could use a rope, y’all.” He pressed his whole body to the cliff, and his breath brought up puffs of white dust.

  His heart pounded like crazy. That had been close. Thank goodness he’d been the last man to climb so no one else had been endangered.

  He peered down the slope. The rope lay in a tangled coil on the pebbles. That could have been him, dream or no dream.

  “Pax!” Gene’s voice came from above, almost frantic. “Grab hold.”

  Something whapped the back of his steel helmet.

  A rope, and Clay took it. He wiggled his bayonet free, clenched it between his teeth, and climbed to the top.

  Holman and McKillop yanked on the rope. Gene and Ruby grabbed Clay’s arms and hoisted him up onto horizontal ground.

  Clay dropped the bayonet and lay flat, his fingers working into cool blessed grass. “What happened?”

  “Lyons tripped over the line.” Contempt warped Sid Rubenstein’s voice.

  “What?” Clay pushed up to his knees and pulled in a ragged breath. Why on earth had Lyons been near the lines? They all knew better than that.

  “Yeah, Lyons.” Ernie McKillop glared at him. “What were you thinking?”

  “It was an accident.” Lyons shrugged. “Sorry.”

  “Glad to hear it.” Clay couldn’t keep sarcasm out of his tone. If any other man in the battalion had caused such an accident, he’d have fallen all over himself apologizing and thanking heaven no one had been hurt.

  Not cool and calculating Frank Lyons.

  Not that dark-haired man of medium build, and Clay’s blood chilled.

  Was it on accident? Or on purpose?

  Or was Clay imagining things after looking too hard for the attacker? As G. M. had said, it was probably a coincidence, two unrelated crimes, neither by a Ranger.

  “You all right?” Gene held out a hand.

  Clay took it and got to his feet, shakier than he cared to admit. “Yeah.”

  Lieutenant Taylor strode over, concern all over his face. “Paxton, I heard what happened.”

  “I’m fine, sir.” Clay brushed chalk from his Parsons field jacket.