The Rain Sparrow

by Debbie Macomber

But she didn’t.

  When she heard footsteps coming down the brushy, well-trod trail leading downhill from the mill to the creek, she realized she’d been waiting for Thaddeus.

  Head tilted back, she opened her eyes and saw him, upside down, his face tired. When he noticed her there, his expression lightened.

  “I figured you’d gone to the house.”

  Josie sat up straight and pulled her feet up on the rock. Her dress bunched, getting the hem damp. “Which means you didn’t even notice that I’d cleaned up the first floor.”

  “I noticed.” He lowered himself to his knees and splashed water on his face.

  Josie thought of the scars on his arms. Her gaze went there. He did not roll up his sleeves today, but the healed wounds were visible on the tops of his hands.

  Her heart squeezed, sorry anew for his loss and curious about the woman he’d tried so desperately to save.

  “Was she beautiful?”

  His head snapped toward her. “Who?”

  “Your wife.”

  He studied her for a moment as if deciding how much he wanted to say and then, with a sigh, almost of relief, replied, “In her own way, yes, and beautiful on the inside, too.”

  Josie pulled up her knees and wrapped her arms around them. “Tell me about her. You must have loved her very much.”

  He settled on a flat gray rock at her side and studied the backs of his hands.

  Josie tightened her arms around her upraised knees to keep from touching him. She’d seen dozens of hideous wounds during the weeks and months Captain Will’s Federal Army occupied Peach Orchard Farm, but only Thad’s wounds had the power to move her beyond anger.

  She wondered at the strange emotions he stirred in her breast, but she let them slide away as Thad began to speak.

  His voice low and achy, he told of Amelia and their six-year-old daughter, Grace, of the fire he blamed himself for though he’d not been at home when the flames erupted, of the months when he’d hung between life and death, not caring if the burns took him, too.

  When he stopped, the painful story shimmered in the humid evening, a ghost of his past, and Josie could bear to hear no more. If she was shallow for her cowardice, she remained unrepentantly so.

  “There must have been good times,” she said, emotions as fragile as spun glass. “Tell me the best thing you remember.”

  With a sidelong gaze, he pondered her request.

  “The best thing?” He shook his head. “I have trouble recalling anything but the fire. I dream about it.”

  She dreamed about Tandy lost and alone and about Charlotte locked for weeks inside her blue bedroom. She dreamed of a Federal captain once dead but now alive again and of the guilt she wore like a suit of armor. She understood how dreams could haunt a person.

  “Try,” was all she said.

  He reached for a stick lying on the bank and stirred the shallow waters. Small silvery fish darted away like shadowy ghosts when a lamp was lit.

  “We first met at a pie supper,” he said, his words softly nostalgic. “Her family was new at church, and no one bid on her pie. My mother nudged me, wanting to make the newcomers feel welcome.”

  “So you bought her pie, fell madly in love and that was that?”

  He chuckled, shaking his head. “It wasn’t that simple. I didn’t win the pie.”

  She dropped her hands to her sides and angled toward him. “What happened?”

  “As soon as I shouted my first bid, another fellow took interest. He won the pie.” He rolled his head in her direction. “But I won the girl.”

  Josie smiled. And maybe she sighed a little. “That’s terribly romantic.”

  “I didn’t think so at the time. However, her mother was so grateful that I had saved her daughter from embarrassment that she insisted Amelia bake another pie for me.”

  “Did she?”

  “She did. I married her six weeks later.”

  Josie intentionally widened her eyes. “That must have been really good pie.”

  Her ridiculous statement made him laugh, and the weightiness of their conversation lifted. Josie was glad she’d made him smile. He’d lost too much, a thought that stunned her. She’d never wanted to feel compassion for anyone associated with Northern aggression. But there it was, slick as a mossy rock.

  He swiveled the stick round and round in the crystal clear creek, stirring mud until that one spot was murky and dark. How easy in life to poke at one dirty spot and muck up all the surrounding good.

  “That’s the first time I’ve laughed when talking about her.”

  She didn’t know what to say to that. Grief, she figured, never fully went away. A man didn’t stop caring for his wife and child because they weren’t on this earth anymore. But everyone needed to laugh, and if she’d brought him a sliver of joy, even if he was a Yankee, maybe God wouldn’t be so mad at her about the other things she’d done.

  Behind them, the waterwheel rested for the night and water cascaded over the low falls in a steady, soothing rush. Here, along the shallows dotted by flat rocks, rich, green vines provided a cool respite, and the surrounding woods and natural outcroppings shaded the creek by day and formed a protective glen by night.

  Magnolia Creek and the mill were as familiar to her as her home. They were home.

  She and Thad sat together in the falling light, saying little. The company and the cooling dusk were enough. Along the horizon, the first star appeared.

  “Oh, look.” She pointed as she softly quoted a favorite childhood poem. “Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight...”

  Her voice trailed off, and she stood, arms crossed against the rush of longing for something she couldn’t even name.

  “I wish I may, I wish I might, have this wish I wish tonight,” Thad finished, standing with her. Standing close enough that her breath caught and the longing grew stronger. “What do you wish for, Josie?”

  Her heart banged with a sudden rumble as if thunder rolled over Lookout Mountain and down across the hills and valleys.

  “Wishes don’t come true.”

  “Are you sure?” He stepped closer, and in the twilight, his blue eyes were like a beacon to light the way to a place she was afraid to go.

  “I wished for many things, Thaddeus. Prayed for them, too, though my prayers, unlike those of the other Portland women, don’t seem to matter.”

  “They matter.”

  “Do they?” she challenged, fighting against the tide of feelings Thaddeus generated and embracing the guilt that set her apart. “I fear God has no patience with those who commit grievous wrongs against the innocent.”

  He tilted his noble head and starlight found the paler skin of scars along the side of his face. “For what grievous wrongs do you so harshly judge yourself?”

  Insides hot and tight to the point of exploding her shame like shrapnel over a battlefield, Josie tossed her hair.

  She’d never told a soul, but what did it matter if she told him, a Yankee? Darkness covered sins and confessions.

  “Lizzy had a son. He was a good boy, Benjamin’s dearest friend and constant companion, though Tandy was a few years older.” Her voice faded. “Lizzy loved him madly.”

  “Her only child?” he asked softly.

  Josie sighed, guilty, guilty, guilty. “Yes. Her only kin that I know of. Lizzy never named the father, though Tandy’s skin and eyes were lighter than hers, and rumors said—” She shook her head. “I should not convey rumors about the dead.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Edgar sold him to torment Charlotte and punish Lizzy. Because of me.” She stared at him defiantly, wanting him to hate her so the boil of feelings between them would cool to frost. “I told Edgar of the secret correspondence between his wife and your cousin.”
<
br />   “Charlotte and Will.” His expression remained as mild as milk, and that simply would not do.

  “I was the guilty party, not the two of them.” She emitted a hard, mirthless laugh. “Charlotte fears God too much to take a lover, though I could not fathom then what a cruel husband Edgar was to her. He was my brother, and I revered him while I despised Charlotte and her calm, pious British ways. She was a traitor, I thought, for cavorting with a Yankee officer and nursing wounded Union soldiers when my Tom was out there somewhere alone.”

  “We all live with regrets, Josie.”

  “None so grievous as harming a child.”

  “Has Lizzy attempted to find him?”

  “Charlotte placed ads in the newspapers and wrote letters to plantation owners seeking information. What more can we do?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  She gazed up at the starlight, wondering if Tandy, too, wished on the stars and prayed to find his way home. “He’s out there somewhere, missing his home, his mother, his best friend. And I am to blame for whatever has happened to a young, innocent boy.”

  He touched her shoulder, and she could feel the compassion emitting from him and forgiveness she did not deserve.

  To cover the surge of emotion pushing at her chest, Josie twirled away, her skirt hem damp against her bare feet.

  Telling the secret shame made it no less burdensome, and she wished she’d kept silent.

  Wishes. So foolish.

  “When we were children,” she managed, though her voice was strained, “Patience and I came to the creek almost every summer day to cool off.”

  If her change of topics surprised him, Thaddeus took it in stride. She was, after all, known to be unpredictable. When she’d been young and flirty, she’d liked the reputation of driving the men a little mad with her swift mood changes.

  “You can swim?” he asked.

  She whipped back around, on safer ground now. Her chest wasn’t quite as tight and hot, but she kept her arms crossed anyway. “Can’t you?”

  “Of course I can. It’s just—”

  “That I am female?”

  His eyebrows lifted, and he smiled a quirky little grin. “You are indeed.”

  Josie didn’t know why she did it—perhaps to ease her own strange discombobulation—but when the impulse struck, she didn’t resist.

  She pushed him into the creek.

  Thaddeus stumbled backward, his mouth open in surprise, and landed on his back with a mighty splash. He went under and then surfaced with a sucked-in gasp, eyes wide and hair dripping, dark now instead of light.

  Josie snickered and clapped her hands together. “Why, sir, you’ve been baptized!” Then she laughed outright, feeling immensely better, in control, back on even ground.

  Thaddeus stood up out of the water with a good-natured grin and shook like a wet dog. His hat floated toward the bank, and she turned to reel it in, still laughing. She loved a surprise.

  The next thing she knew, a pair of very strong arms swept her up. Her hot body touched his cool, wet one and she squealed, flailing her legs. “Put me down this instant!”

  “As you wish.” His grin was downright wicked as he dropped her into the creek.

  The sudden cold against her scalding flesh sucked the breath from her. Her heavy skirt buoyed up around her legs. She slapped down the wet garment with both palms and sat upright.

  While she’d like to pretend anger, the water felt divine. Still, she could not allow him to get the better of her in this game.

  “You—you—Yankee!” Yankee was the worst insult she could think of.

  Hands on his hips, he smirked. “Little red Rebel.”

  Somehow the words sounded more like an endearment than an insult. She tossed her head. Her hair had tumbled loose and dripped water under her collar and down onto the warm skin beneath. She shivered.

  “The least you can do is help me up.”

  Water splashed as Thad waded toward her. Grinning, he reached out a hand. She did what any self-respecting Confederate girl would do. She jerked him down.

  With a magnificent splash that pleased her no end, he landed across her lap and knocked her back into the water. She flailed, grabbing purchase where she could, which happened to be Thaddeus Eriksson’s neck.

  His was a strong, corded neck with muscles that ran thick across his miller’s shoulders. She’d noticed his strong arms when he’d easily lifted her that first day on the street of Honey Ridge. Now, with the frogs beginning to croak along the bank and dusk deepening, she became aware of him all over again.

  “I shall drown you,” she said lightly, breathlessly, “if given the chance.”

  She was trapped, her back against the lumpy rock and silt creek bottom with Thaddeus slung carelessly across her, his face mere inches away.

  “Don’t I know it?” he replied with a half smile on handsome, sculpted lips. “So we have a dilemma. If I relinquish my advantage, I risk death by drowning.” His face hovered ever closer, and his voice lowered. “What’s a man to do?”

  Thunder rumbled over the mountains and into her chest, though there was not a cloud in the sky. Was Thaddeus threatening to kiss her?

  Her breath came faster. My, but his face was handsome, and his eyes, she knew, were the color of a summer morning, a color she’d always admired. He smelled of corn and heat and clear, sweet water. The unfamiliar heaviness and heat of him pressed against her, a different heat than the weather, a troubling heat she rather enjoyed.

  His warm, soft breath fanned her face. He blinked, and thick lashes, dark with moisture, fanned his sculpted cheekbones. With his hair pushed back from his face, a small puckered scar appeared beneath his right ear. A burn scar.

  She wanted him to kiss her. Desperately wanted it.

  And him a Yankee.

  “A better question, sir,” she said in mock haughtiness, “is this.”

  In a movement as quick as the darting fish in the creek, she stuck her fingers into his rib cage and tickled. Caught by surprise, he cried out, laughing and wriggling to get away.

  As he tumbled onto his side and into the creek, she let go of him to sit up quickly and watch him flail about in the shallows. Satisfied that she’d won the skirmish, both with him and herself, she pushed her hair back in a heavy, wet wad, straightened her skirt and smiled a cat’s smile.

  He sat up beside her, breathing heavily, expression wryly amused. “Truce.”

  Josie sniffed. She would have tossed her head, but wet hair was too heavy. “For now.”

  He chuckled, and when he did, she giggled. Soon they were laughing, laughing, until tears mingled with the creek water.

  Finally, when the mirth subsided, Thad rose and helped her up, this time with the grace of a gentleman. She didn’t want him to be a gentleman. His courtesy made her...care. And caring about him was unconscionable.

  To cover her discomfort, she found his hat and plopped it on his head. They both dripped, but her long skirts made walking a chore. She lifted the hem and trudged along beside him.

  He took her arm, gentleman again, and led the way up the path alongside the waterwheel and down the shadowy, bushy trail leading across the road and into the fields.

  “I fear we’ve missed supper.”

  “Charlotte will leave something on the stove.”

  Dusk became nightfall, and the moon rose, full and yellow as an egg yolk.

  A thousand thoughts tumbled through her head. She hated Yankees, and Thad was a Yankee. But he was also a good man who made her happy in a way she hadn’t been since Tom.

  There was the crux of the matter. Tom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Present

  HAYDEN WAS GONE.

  It was bad enough he’d left without a word, but to make matters
worse, Carrie had to learn about his departure from Lynn at the Miniature Golf Café. Lynn had heard the news from the Sweat twins, who’d heard it from Whitey Farris at the gas station on Bedford Street, which connected directly to the highway leading out of town. Whitey had been on duty when Hayden filled the Chrysler with gas, picked up a bag of trail mix, a bottle of orange juice and one of water and headed north.

  Over a chicken salad sandwich, Carrie tried to pretend she was neither surprised nor disappointed, though she was both.

  “You didn’t know,” Nikki said, after Lynn Ringwald slid a Cobb salad in front her and moved away. Carrie’s sister, who could read her face before her brain knew what she was thinking, at least had the good grace to lean in close and speak quietly.

  With a breezy wave of a paper napkin, Carrie answered, “He was only in Honey Ridge to work on a book. He lives in New York. I suppose it was time for him to move on.”

  Nikki squinted long-lashed eyes. “But he didn’t tell you. And at Dad’s party, I gathered that you two were getting close. You’ve sure spent a lot of time with him.”

  “I helped with his research.” She poked a chip in her mouth and crunched.

  “Well, shoot. That’s disappointing to hear.”

  Tell me about it. Disappointing and humiliating. She had invited him in, and he’d left town instead. Great for a girl’s ego.

  “Did you call him?”

  “No!” Carrie drew back against the diner chair. “Why would I do that?”

  “I’m your sister. Even if you pretend not to care, I saw the way you were with Hayden.”

  “You keep that to yourself. Hayden has never said one word to lead me on. If I have feelings—and I’m not saying I do—they’re on me, not him.” After that night and that kiss, the ball was in his court. “If he’d wanted me to know, he would have called me.”

  The moment when he’d kissed her—she resisted the urge to touch her mouth the way she had a dozen times before falling asleep Sunday night—had been magical. Then he’d backed away and left her bewildered and a little hurt.

  And he’d left town without a word.

  She didn’t invite men into her house every weekend. In a town this small, reputation was everything, a fact she knew too well. She’d taken months, maybe years, to live down the day Simon’s wife had called her an ugly, pathetic, old-maid husband stealer—and a lot of other unmentionable things—in front of half the town. The gossips had lapped it up, choosing to believe and embellish every word, even though they had known her all her life.