Sycamore Hill

by Francine Rivers

  “Well, I didn’t know,” I said, quietly defensive while wondering that mess I had gotten myself into now.

  “Too bad,” he said softly. “For you, that is.”

  “That still doesn’t alter things,” I replied, blinking fast as my mind started to whirl madly. Just what form would his threat take, I wondered frantically. What was he possibly thinking to have that look back in his eyes? “You should have made yourself known earlier or, better still, ridden away!”

  “I don’t know a man alive who would ride away from the scene I just enjoyed,” he answered. His eyes moved down, lingering on the rapid rise and fall of my breasts. He smiled.

  “Any gentleman would have,” I said fiercely. His eyes came back up to mine, and he laughed out loud.

  “You think so? How very little you know about men, my dear Miss McFarland.”

  “Well, I’m not going to stand here arguing with you about it,” I managed, turning quickly away to escape, but he moved quickly as well. He slapped my horse hard on the rump, sending him cantering off with a start.

  “Why did you do that?” I gasped in dismay, staring at Jordan. Then I turned to look at my horse a distance away. I started to run after it, but Jordan’s arm looped around my waist and lifted me off the ground. His mouth was next to my ear.

  “Don’t you remember what I told you about coming onto my territory?”

  I tried desperately to pry his fingers loose. “Let... go of me... Mr. Bennett,” I gasped, kicking and twisting.

  “Not this time!”

  My heart thudded. “The message you sent by way of Linda implied safe passage,” I said quickly. “Now put me down!”

  “Nothing doing.” He laughed. “And I did offer you ‘safe passage,’ as you call it, to the ranch house for the purpose of discussing Linda’s progress in school, not safe passage to wander around on my land and then bathe naked as a jaybird in my river.”

  “Then put me down, and we will talk about Linda,” I pleaded, squirming. He set me on my feet again, and I hastily rearranged my clothing, stuffing my blouse back into my skirt. My face could not have been redder, nor my heart racing faster.

  ‘Talk away,” he said, crossing his arms. And I did. I talked out of desperation. I was relieved that he was listening!

  “Why don’t we sit down?” he suggested. “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting hot standing out here in the sun.”

  Jordan indicated the shade beneath the big oak. He started toward it, and I had little choice but to follow. When he sat down, I hesitated. I could hardly stand above him like this and finish telling him about Linda’s progress and educational needs. So I slowly sat down, eyeing him warily. He smiled slightly, his eyes mocking. Then he plucked another straw to chew on.

  “You were saying that Linda has some difficulties in expressing herself,” he prodded.

  “She’s very shy, except with Diego,” I managed. Then I continued slowly, finally launching into some suggestions on how he could help her. He nodded. When I finished, I cast around for something more to say.

  “Seems I’ve misjudged your teaching abilities,” Jordan said casually. He had reclined on the grass, his head supported by his hand. “But I still think you’re better suited for other things.” His expression was unreadable. I was not sure what he meant by that cryptic statement; so I was not going to take either offense or pleasure in it.

  “I enjoy teaching very much,” I said frankly. He was studying me, and I shifted restlessly. “Well, that’s all I have to say,” I told him nervously. “Do you have any questions?”

  “I’ve a lot of questions, Miss McFarland,” he said wryly, a smile pulling up the comers of his mouth. My heart lurched.

  “What did you want to know?” I asked.

  “How is it you’ve never gotten married?”

  My mouth tightened, and I started to get up. His hand caught my wrist, preventing me from rising.

  “Well?”

  “That’s not the kind of question I meant!”

  “You didn’t qualify yourself.” His thumb caressed the inside of my wrist. I pulled back, disturbed by the intimate touch. But his hold was unyielding though painless.

  “I never met anyone I wanted to marry,” I stammered. He looked at me closely, his expression changing slightly.

  “Did you have many suitors?” He was taunting me again.

  “If you must know the truth, I didn’t have any!” I was stung to admit. I pulled back again, but he retained an even firmer hold on my wrist. His eyes narrowed fractionally.

  “You expect me to believe that?”

  I tried to tell myself it did not matter what he thought about me. Then I knew it did matter. What Jordan thought of me mattered very much.

  “It’s true. I was hardly in a position to meet any men, and if I had, it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.”

  He frowned, uncomprehending. “What do you mean?”

  “My guardians, the Haversalls, were not my relations,” I explained. “I was not in their social sphere. I did not mingle with their friends, and I never had the opportunity to make friends of my own.”

  “Why not?” He was still frowning.

  I remembered the hours of work I had done for the Haversalls. The way I had answered their needs as charwoman, scullery maid and lady’s hand servant. I thought also of the fact that the Haversalls had stolen my inheritance while making me more and more dependent on them. I remembered the gratitude Marcella Haversall had reminded me I owed them, and how guilty I had felt each time I had contemplated leaving them and making a life of my own elsewhere. I remembered the day in the parlor, talking with Bradford Dobson and learning the real state of affairs. My throat closed, and I averted my face from Jordan’s.

  “What are you thinking about, Abby?”

  I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago and best forgotten.”

  I was hardly aware that he had pushed himself into a sitting position until I felt his fingers taking the pins from my hair. My eyes widened, and before I could protest, he lowered his head and touched my lips with his in a soft kiss. I moved back away from him, my heart pounding like something wild fighting for freedom. He looked at me with that faintly mocking smile, his eyes very blue. Then he began to lower his head again.

  “Don’t...” I strained away, wanting to stand up, yet not wanting to.

  “We’re playing by my rules now. Remember?” he questioned softly, now pressing his mouth against the curve of my neck. I shuddered ecstatically. My eyes drooped closed, then opened wide again as his hand moved from my face to my breasts. I pushed it away.

  “I’m not very good at parlor games, Mr. Bennett!” I reminded him tremulously. I pressed my hands against his chest. I wanted to escape. He set his weight against me so that I fell backward onto the grass.

  “Nor am I, Miss McFarland,” he agreed mockingly, smiling down from above me.

  “Please, let me go.” I twisted and started to kick out, but he put one leg over mine to still my struggles.

  “Nothing you can say is going to stop me,” he said frankly. “I’m going to do what I’ve wanted to since I first saw you walking along the road in the middle of August, carrying that ridiculous threadbare carpetbag of yours.” He leaned down and kissed me then, and there was no gentleness in it, only a sensual demand he intended me to meet. When he raised his head, my mouth was trembling.

  “Tears won’t work with me, Abby,” he murmured. “Especially when I know there’s no reason for them.”

  I turned my head away as his lowered again. “You don’t understand....” He had rejected my love once before, leaving me feeling bereft and ashamed. And yet, I wanted him again even more than I had that first time in my room. I was afraid, so afraid of why he was doing this.

  Jordan nuzzled my neck, nipping me slightly. “I understand that some things defy all the rules and reason in the world, like what we feel for each other,” he was saying. “You won’t admit it yet, but you want me as muc
h as I want you. If I didn’t know that, I wouldn’t be here with you now.” He pulled me full against him as he rolled sideways to relieve me of his weight.

  “Now, kiss me back, damn you,” he challenged softly, and because I really wanted to, I did.

  What fears and reservations I had dissolved with Jordan’s expert love-making. I cared about nothing except that he hold me, kiss me, possess me. My response was instinctive and irreversible, and I knew that he reveled in it, taking all that I was willing to give and demanding that which I was afraid at the last second to relinquish. I felt as though I belonged in Jordan’s arms, and that whatever was in his past did not matter at all. What mattered was now and the ecstasy of giving myself to him completely, because I loved him.

  It was only afterward that I realized how self-defeating one’s mind can be, how we convince ourselves of fairy-tale endings and knights who are not dressed in tarnished armor.

  Jordan said nothing after his possession. His hands continued to stroke my body as though exploring newly claimed territory. I lay silently beside him, my eyes closed, wanting desperately to hear him say he loved me. When he still said nothing, fear began to gnaw at me. Surely he must now know how much I loved him after what I had just given to him. But still he said nothing, and his hands stopped their caressing as he stared up at the sky above us. The warmth he had created with his ardent love-making cooled, and I felt a hard lump in my throat.

  Pushing himself up, Jordan looked down at me, his eyes moving over my body in a sensual perusal that gave me an uneasy feeling deep in the pit of my stomach. He bent down and nibbled at my ear. Then he gave a throaty laugh, a sound of male triumph.

  “You don’t look like a Boston lady now, my dear Miss McFarland,” he said sardonically. His hand moved from my face in a long caress down the length of my body to rest on my bare thigh. “In fact, you look anything but a lady.”

  A chill grew inside me until I thought I would die of it. He gave me a quick kiss before straightening again. He was saying something about the ranch, but my mind was still focused on his indictment of my behavior of moments before. Shakily, I sat up and reached out for my clothes.

  I could feel Jordan watching me, looking over the body he had recently claimed like something he had bought for a bargain at a bawdy house.

  “Don’t dress yet, Abby. There’s the whole afternoon.”

  I avoided his hand when he reached out to touch me. I wondered if I could even stand, I was shaking so hard. But I had to get away from him. He had only wanted to use me like some whore, and I had been fool enough to let him. There had been no love inside him when he had possessed my body, only a carnal need.

  I stood up, frantically pulling on my clothes and fastening them with trembling fingers. I stuffed my blouse heedlessly into my skirt. Jordan was dressing leisurely, watching me with an expression of amusement. He pulled on his pants, clasping his belt buckle. I was so ashamed of what I had done that I wanted to die on the spot. Had I really allowed Jordan to make love to me here on the grass, right out in the open like some field animal? Tears blinded me. Jordan was pulling on one of his boots when I bolted toward the horse standing about a hundred yards away. Jordan caught me and swung me around to face him.

  “What in hell is the matter with you now?” he demanded insensitively, staring at my tear-streaked face. I did not even stop to think what I was doing.

  “I hate you!” I spat at him, pulling my arm back and lashing out at him, striking him hard across the face. His expression mirrored astonishment, and then a black rage. I saw his hand coming at me and did nothing to avoid it. I stumbled back from the blow, and my cheek burned like fire.

  Yet, somehow his action was what I wanted. It relieved some of the emotional ravagement I felt, leaving me with a numbing shock and a physical pain I could hide behind.

  Trembling violently, I put my hand up and touched my face. Jordan was staring at me, white-faced. He raked his fingers back through his hair, and I saw that his hand was shaking.

  “If you hate me, you’ve a damned strange way of showing it.” He was looking at me as though he detested me. “What you hate, my dear Miss McFarland, is your own precious self. Because you gave me everything without making conditions first,” he hurled at me, his mouth twisting bitterly. I turned away and ran, unable to bear any further rejection and humiliation.

  “Abby!”

  I kept running. Reaching my horse, I swung myself up, my skirts hitching about my knees. I did not care.

  “Abby!” Jordan shouted again, not moving from where he was. “So help me, God. If you run from me now, to hell with you!”

  I kicked my heels hard into the horse’s side, and, unaccustomed to such rude treatment, he lurched forward with a start. I wished he would gallop faster. Not once did I look back at Jordan Bennett standing in the open field above the river pool.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Abby, my dear, what’s wrong with you today?” Ellen asked. “You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said for the past half-hour. Am I that dull in my dotage?”

  “No, Ellen. I’m sorry,” I apologized quickly. “I’ve just got a lot on my mind.”

  “Well, out with it, girl. It’s obviously bothering you. You look as though you haven’t slept a wink in weeks. Now, what’s the matter?”

  “There isn’t anything the matter,” I insisted. “Just.. .just a lot of school things I’ve got to do. You know, Christmas is coming up in less than three weeks. I’m supposed to have a program for the parents.”

  “Poppycock,” Ellen grumbled. “That’s not what’s eating you, and don’t try telling me it is. Now, I’ve asked you a question, and I want an answer.”

  “Well, you’ve had the only answer you’re going to get!” I snapped with rudeness. Ellen’s eyes widened.

  “My, my, we’re touchy today, aren’t we?” She clucked her tongue. “Whatever this ‘nothing’ is, it’s serious. I’d bet a dollar on it.” She squinted her pale eyes at me. “It isn’t that darned ghost business again, is it?”

  I could lie and say it was. I had heard the woman crying on occasion, but I was too unhappy to care if there were a dozen ghosts inhabiting the old schoolhouse.

  “I’ve had some problems with James Olmstead and Mr. Hayes,” I said, hoping she would be satisfied with that. Actually, I had not had an argument with either of them in over a week, which was surprising.

  “Yes. That wouldn’t surprise me.” She chuckled. “I heard about the scene at the general store a while back. My niece told me all about it, and she heard it all from Berthamae, naturally. That woman has a mouth as big as the Grand Canyon.” She chuckled again. “I also heard that Jordan arrived at an opportune moment. The report had it that you were about to be hung by your thumbs.”

  The last person in the world I wanted to think or talk about was Jordan Bennett. I felt as though what had happened between us the week before was written clearly across my forehead. “This woman gave her body to Jordan Bennett without benefit of clergy!”

  “Mr. Bennett didn’t appreciate my ‘interference,’ as he so kindly called it,” I told Ellen.

  She was watching my face with her usual shrewdness. “Jordan’s a sensitive man, and don’t give me that look of yours, my girl. He is! He’s probably still annoyed with you for thinking he fathered Diego.”

  “I don’t imagine it matters what I think about Mr. Bennett,” I told her stiffly and stood up. “I really must be going, Ellen. I’ve got... I’ve got a lot of school things to plan out for the next week or two. The holidays are coming, and we should give a program for the parents. And....” I was rambling, searching for excuses, and I knew it. Worse, Ellen knew it. I gave a faint smile of apology and turned to leave.

  “Abby...” Ellen called softly, and I looked back questioningly at her over my shoulder. “Abby, dear, whatever is bothering you... if you ever want to talk about it, I’m always here. And I hope you know that whatever you say to me will be kept in strictest confidence.” Her tone
was gentle and sympathetic. How much did this intelligent woman see?

  “Yes, I know.” I nodded, unable to say more. I turned away, hoping she had not seen the tears. I shut the door quietly behind me and then leaned back against it. I loved Ellen Greer like a mother. I longed to put my head on her lap and cry out the whole dreadful story. But I was afraid that her affection for me would change to shocked disapproval.

  Rubbing the tears away quickly, I told myself I had to get control. What was done was done, and I couldn’t change anything. I had made a fool of myself, giving myself to a man who cared absolutely nothing for me. It had happened, and I couldn’t alter that fact. It was best not to dwell on what had happened, not to relive the shame and hurt of his blunt assessment of me only minutes after making love.

  Jordan had said I was no lady, and I had not been when I had given myself to him with such abandoned wantonness. I remembered his triumphant laugh and the way he had looked at my body, like something he owned. I should hate him. I should tear him from my mind. Yet, I only felt a longing for him that grew worse as the days passed. I couldn’t stop thinking about him. Jordan had been right when he said I hated myself, not him. I wondered if other women felt this aching need for a man’s possession.

  Drawing a deep breath, I left the boardinghouse. I smiled at Margaret Hudson’s mother as she called a greeting to me from the opposite side of the street. I paused to gaze in pretended interest at the new display in the milliner’s window.

  The bell on the door tinkled as someone started out.

  “Good afternoon, Miss McFarland,” Marba Lane said in her husky voice. I looked up from the lacy confection in the window and smiled warmly, very pleased to see her.

  “Hello, Miss Lane.” She was wearing a beautiful lilac dress, trimmed with ivory lace and pink ribbons. A glorious flowered hat crowned her elaborately dressed raven hair.

  “What a lovely ensemble,” I breathed candidly. “Are they Mrs. Apperson’s creations?”

  “Thank you.” She smiled, well pleased with my reaction to her finery. “But, no, they’re not Georgia’s creations. I saw the designs in a French magazine and asked her to copy them for me.”