by Lisa Gregory
"That's not true."
"It is. You know it is. You and Sarah have to be alone together."
Luke sighed and moved away. "I think that's the last thing we need."
"Luke, I sit at the dinner table every night. I talk to you. I talk to Sarah. But you and Sarah hardly exchange two words. You don't sleep with her."
"She just gave birth," he replied stiffly. "Do you think I'm going to—"
"I think a woman's husband ought to be lying beside her at night. He ought to be there when she wakes up in the dead of the night, feeling so empty. Then's when she needs you to hold her and let her cry her heart out."
"You think I don't want to be there? That I don't ache to comfort her? She doesn't want me there, Julia. She doesn't want me."
"I don't believe that. Sarah loves you as much as you love her."
He shook his head. "She realized, finally, what she married. She understands why everybody warned her against me."
"You're talking crazy."
"Am I?"
"Of course you are. Why would Sarah have changed her mind about you?"
Luke shook his head. "Just believe me. She has." He paused, and when he spoke again, it was in a voice so low
Julia had to strain to hear it. "She turned away from me, Julie. She hates me."
"No."
"It's the truth."
"How do you know? Has she told you?"
"I can tell. She won't talk to me anymore. It's like I'm a stranger."
"You have to talk to her about it. You've got to straighten it out. That's why you need to be alone."
"Your leaving won't change what's between Sarah and me."
"Maybe not. But I have to go, anyway. The children and I need to have our own life. We should be a family together. I want to be on my own; I don't want to be dependent on someone else, not even you. You can understand that, can't you? Didn't you always want a home, something you could call your own?"
"Sure. It's just. . . you're my sister. I want to take care of you. You shouldn't have to work."
"I've worked all my life, Luke. The difference is now I'll get paid for it. Now I'll enjoy it."
"I don't want you to get hurt again."
"I won't be, I promise. I'm an adult now. I won't let myself... be so foolish again."
"Hell, Julie. You don't know what you're getting into. I should have protected you last time, and I didn't. I was too selfish, too careless. But this time I will."
"I don't need protection. James won't hurt me. He wouldn't be interested in me anymore, and even if he were, he wouldn't force himself on me. Do you think that I'm so stupid that he'll be able to trick me into his bed?"
"Of course I don't think you're stupid."
"Then admit that I can take care of myself."
"You shouldn't have to."
"I want to."
Luke sighed. "Obviously I can't stop you." He paused. His eyes were hard and glinting. "But if he hurts you this time, I'll kill him."
❧
Two Saturdays after that, Julia moved into town. Micah drove the wagon, loaded high with the furniture Luke had retrieved from Julia's neighbor's house. The children sat excitedly on the high seat beside him, and Luke, Sarah, and Julia followed in the buggy.
Julia was surprised to see James standing on the front porch of the rent house, waiting for them. He smiled and hurried across the yard to help Julia out of the buggy.
"Mrs. Dobson. Mrs. Turner. I'm glad to see you're feeling better."
"Thank you." Sarah hid a smile. The doctor had barely glanced at her as he greeted her. His eyes were on Julia, and the expression on his face was too eager for that of a landlord or an employer. It confirmed Sarah's suspicion that James Banks felt more for Julia than either the simple kindness or lust that Julia and Luke attributed to him. Sarah was equally certain that Julia was not entirely immune to the doctor, either.
Though she knew Luke would have been furious to hear her say it, she was hopeful that Julia's move might encourage a romance between these two. With that idea in mind, Sarah had sewn up two more attractive shirtwaists and skirts for her sister-in-law and had spruced up Julia's other dresses and blouses with bows and touches of eyelet embroidery or lace. She had worked on the clothes happily, not even noticing that for the first time since she had gone into labor she was interested in something.
"Our housekeeper is here getting the place ready for you," James told Julia. "I dropped by to see that everything was in order." He didn't add that he had dropped by an hour ago and had been loitering around ever since, trying to look as if he were doing something. He wouldn't admit, even to himself, that he wanted to be there when Julia arrived, that he wanted to see her face as she went through the house.
"That was nice of you." Julia looked past him to the house. The children were already racing across the lawn toward the front door.
It wasn't a big house, only one story tall and two rooms wide, but it was cunning in its smallness, like a dollhouse. A small porch, adorned with gingerbread, ran across the front. The house was while, with blue shutters and trim. A white picket fence edged the small front lawn.
Julia swallowed. Her throat was almost too tight to speak. It was beautiful, a perfect little dream of a house. "It's lovely."
James smiled and relaxed. "I'm glad you like it. Come in and see the rest." Belatedly, he remembered to turn to Luke and Sarah and include them in the invitation.
Inside, the house was split by a wide hall running the length of the house, with rooms opening off on either side. There were a parlor and a dining room at the front of the house, and behind them were a spacious kitchen and two bedrooms. A screened-in porch stretched across the width of the house at the back.
The hardwood floors were waxed to a golden gleam, and the walls were freshly painted. The kitchen was a cheery pale yellow. The larger bedroom was papered in a pattern of twining pink roses. In the backyard were two cherry trees, already laden with hard green fruit, and the grass was thick and green.
Julia could already see herself picking the cherries with the children, already imagine the kitchen sweet with the aroma of baking cherry pies. She would put her braided rug in her bedroom, and she would make a new, brighter one for the parlor. The sofa would go here, the chairs there. In the summer, Vance would love to sleep on the screened porch, where the breeze could touch him. There was even a mantel over the fireplace in the parlor.
She turned to James, tears springing into her eyes. "It's perfect. I love it." She could say nothing else, or she knew she would cry. She pressed her lips together and turned away. James looked at her. Just for a moment, before his good sense returned, he wanted very much to take her into his arms and hold her.
But he didn't. He stepped back. "I'm glad you like it." He glanced around. He couldn't think of anything to say, any reason to stay longer. "Well. I guess you're eager to move in. I'll just get out of your way." He walked to the front door and turned. "If you need anything, let me know."
"Take your time getting settled. You needn't come in to work until you're all squared away here."
"Thank you. But I'm sure I'll be there Monday."
"I'll see you then." He paused, then nodded once, briefly, and left the room.
Julia revolved slowly, gazing at the parlor. It was beautiful. Everything was beautiful. She couldn't have wished for a lovelier home.
And Jimmy had given it to her.
She wanted to cry and laugh and throw her arms around him. She wondered if he had any idea how much this house meant to her. With the luxury he'd grown up in, no doubt it seemed like nothing to him. But it was the world to her.
❧
Luke and Micah carried the furniture into the house in silence. It was obvious to Micah that Luke wasn't in too good a humor about his sister's moving into town, so he figured the best course was to keep his own mouth shut, too.
They carried in the sofa for the parlor together. Then Micah returned with one of the parlor chairs. He glanced down the
hall as he was leaving the parlor and came to a dead stop. At the other end of the hallway a tall, slender black woman emerged from a room. She wore a faded calico blouse and skirt, and an old kerchief was tied around her head to protect her hair from the dust. From her clothes one might have mistaken her for a maid, but Micah recognized her instantly. It was his schoolteacher.
He dipped the front brim of his hat with a finger. "Mornin'."
Her cool gaze looked right through him, and she turned around and walked right back into the kitchen without a word. Micah shook his head, looking after her, then grinned. He made sure that he and Luke brought in the kitchen table next. The woman was cleaning the kitchen windows with a soapy rag. Another, heavier black woman washed the windows from the outside. The other woman looked in curiously at them, but his schoolteacher kept her rigid back to them, silently scrubbing away.
"Mornin'," Micah said again to her, knowing that she would be forced to be polite with Luke there.
She turned, forcing a smile. "Good morning."
"Hello, Dovie," Luke replied.
Dovie. So that was her name. It was a pretty, soft name. Micah repeated it in his mind. It sounded good, but not at all like her. She was too regal and prickly and classically beautiful.
The two men went back to the wagon for more furniture, and as soon as they were out of earshot, Micah said casually, "You know her?"
Luke glanced at him. "Dovie? Sure. Everybody knows her. She teaches school over at the Negro schoolhouse." For the first time that morning, Luke smiled. "Why? I take it, you don't know her?"
"Not much as I'd like." As soon as he said it, Micah realized it was the sort of thing he wasn't supposed to say. It was too free and easy a way to talk to a white man. But that was the nice thing about Luke Turner. He didn't notice such slips.
Luke's grin grew broader. "I see. Well, she's Lurleen Mitchell's daughter. Lurleen's worked for Dr. Banks ever since I can remember. The old doctor sent her off to college, so I reckon she must be smart." He cast Micah a sideways glance. "She's not married, far as I ever heard, if that's what you're wondering."
Micah smiled. "I didn't think so."
Luke made no effort to help Micah carry in the chairs to the kitchen table. Instead, he picked up an end table for the parlor. Micah smiled and picked up a kitchen chair under each arm.
When he entered the kitchen and set the chairs down, Dovie ignored him, studiously scrubbing away at the windows.
"Those gonna be the cleanes' windows in Texas."
She didn't turn around. "I believe in doing a job well."
"You workin' for the doc this mornin'?"
"I am helping my mother."
"Do that a lot?"
"When I can. When she needs me."
"You helpin' her tonight?"
"No."
"They be dancin' at Opal's place tonight."
Dovie said nothing.
"I thought maybe I see you there."
"I don't go to 'Opal's place.' " Dovie injected the two words with a world of scorn.
"How'd I know that?" Micah grinned and perched on the edge of the table. "You don" dance?"
"I don't drink." She turned around finally and faced him, her hands on her hips. "And I don't keep that kind of company."
"Oh." Micah couldn't help but smile. He liked looking at her. He liked the sparkle in her eyes and the tilt of her chin. "Company like me?"
"Precisely."
"You sure a pretty woman to be so mad all the time."
"I am not mad 'all the time,' only when someone is annoying me. Which is what you are doing right now."
"You even pretty in that dress 'stead of your teacher clothes. But I wish you showed your hair. You got pretty hair. I be steady thinkin' about it—seein' your hair all spread out on your shoulders."
"Mr. Harrison!" Dovie was taut as a bowstring. He saw the faint tremor in her fingers and a certain softening of her mouth that told him she wasn't as indifferent to him as she'd like him to think. "This is not something I wish to discuss."
"Why? You too fine to think 'bout takin' your hair down? 'Bout me takin' it down for you?"
Dovie curled her hands up into balls. The image he evoked sent heat all through her. She thought about his hands, big and rough, callused, but working smooth as silk through her hair. She imagined her knees trembling, giving way so that she had to lean against the hard breadth of his chest. "Please."
"Please what?" Micah slid off the table and walked toward her.
Dovie backed up until the windows stopped her. "Don't."
He watched the quick rise and fall of her chest, the softening of her mouth, but he also saw something like fear in her eyes. That brought him up short. "You scared of me?"
"Of course not." The pointed chin came up a fraction more. "I'm not scared of you or anyone."
"No need to. I won't hurt you."
Dovie wasn't about to explain that she wasn't afraid of him, but of the involuntary response he brought out in her. She shouldn't feel anything like that for a man like him. It was dangerous. "Mr. Harrison..."
"Micah."
She was tempted to say his name, but she refrained. "I am not interested in... any of this."
"Any of what?" His voice was low and warm, and it, too, had a dangerous effect on her.
"I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to see you."
"Why you runnin' so scared, girl?"
"I'm not scared. I'm just not the kind of woman you're obviously used to."
His smile was slow and suggestive. "I could get used to you."
"No. Now please leave me alone."
Micah hesitated. He wanted to move closer to her, to reach out and touch her, to pull her up against him and kiss her. He thought she would kiss him back. But there was that fear in her, too, and that stopped him.
The back door opened. "Honey? What you doin' in here?"
The large black woman from outside puffed into the room. Micah stepped back. He'd forgotten all about the fact that there were people around.
Lurleen stared at Micah. It wouldn't have surprised him if she'd lit into him for making advances toward her prim daughter. But she smiled. "Well, Dovie. You holdin' back on me."
Dovie grimaced. "Mama, this is the Turner's hired hand."
"You got a name?" Lurleen asked him, still grinning.
"Micah Harrison."
"That's a nice name. Where you from, Micah?"
"Mama." Dovie looked pained.
"New Mexico." Micah grinned back at Lurleen. Obviously Lurleen didn't have her daughter's concern about strangers.
"So, you workin' for Luke Turner. Nice folks?"
"Yes. Seem like."
"Dr. Jim tol' me about that poor Mrs. Turner. Sad thing, losin' her baby."
"Yes'm."
"You know many people in town yet?"
"Mama." Dovie shot her a significant look. "I'm sure he needs to get back to work."
Micah looked at Dovie and smiled to let her know he knew why she had stopped her mother from continuing. "Yeah. I better get to work." He nodded to Lurleen. "Nice meetin' you."
He left the kitchen. Behind him he could hear Lurleen's voice. "... good-lookin' man."
"Mama, hush!"
"Don't tell me you ain't interested in him—a man with shoulders like that."
Micah paused, listening.
"Well, even if I were, it wouldn't do any good, now, would it?" Dovie retorted heatedly. "A man like him is nothing but trouble."
Micah smiled to himself and walked out the front door.
❧
Sunday dinner at the Turner house the following day was quiet. There were no guests, no Julia and her children to make conversation, and the silence was oppressive. Emily said a few things, but her conversation was limited, and after a while even her childish prattle ceased, weighed down by the stilted atmosphere.
It had been this way since Julia left. Yesterday after they returned from Willow Springs, Luke had gone out to the barn to do his cho
res while Sarah prepared the food. They had said nothing at supper except to ask that a dish be passed. Then Luke had returned to the barn and not come in until Sarah had gone to bed. She had listened to his footsteps on the stairs. He had walked past her door to Vance's room, where he'd been sleeping the past few weeks. Sarah had lain awake in their big bed, loneliness filling her with cold. She couldn't remember when she'd been so lonely. The baby was lost to her, and now it seemed as though Luke was, too. She wished he would hold her; she was so empty and cold. When she had first lost the baby, she hadn't wanted him to hold her or talk to her. She had been beyond sympathy. But now that the numbness and shock had faded, she needed comfort. She wanted to talk to Luke and hear his soothing voice. She ached to lie in the strength and safety of his arms.
But there was no comfort from Luke.
He sat at the opposite end of the table, six feet away, as removed from her as he had been last night, sleeping in another room. Without Julia there, they had nothing to talk about, no one to talk to. Sarah remembered how once she and Luke and Emily had sat at their table, happily chatting or simply enjoying being together when there was silence. Only weeks ago, she had been so close to Luke it seemed as if they could read each other's thoughts. Now they were strangers. She had no idea what he thought or how be felt. Did he blame her for losing the baby? Did he hate her? Why were they now so separated, so far apart?
Sarah laid down her fork. She had no appetite. "Would you—care for anything else?" she asked, searching for something, anything, to break the silence. "Maybe some preserves for the biscuits? I have peach and strawberry."
Luke shook his head. "No, thank you."
He knew how stilted and formal his words came out. He wished they could talk naturally to each other again. But then, nothing was natural between them anymore. Sarah didn't want to have anything to do with him. He couldn't blame her. He had wrecked their lives. She would never forgive him for killing their child. He would never forgive himself.
He watched her as she bent her head over her plate. She wasn't eating, just pushing the food around. She didn't eat enough. She had lost the weight she'd gained during her pregnancy, and more. Her face was too thin, too pale. She looked fragile.
