Abandoned Memories

by Marylu Tyndall

  He stretched his legs out, dangling one over the side of their wooden platform. “But you’d rather not accept anyone’s help, is that it?”

  She searched his eyes for any mockery but found only concern. “Do you find that so odd?”

  “For a lady, yes.”

  “So you assume all women are weak and in need of help?”

  His brows shot up, and a grin touched his lips. “Whoa, I didn’t say that. I meant no disrespect, Angeline.”

  She looked away. “Forgive me. I suppose it’s just the stress of being chased by killer ants.” She forced a smile, trying to lighten the conversation. It wasn’t James’s fault she trusted no one.

  Placing a finger beneath her chin, he turned her to face him. “There’s no shame in needing help.” His eyes seemed to look right through her, and she found the sensation unsettling to say the least.

  She jerked from his touch. “It depends on the price.”

  Price? The woman baffled James. They’d barely escaped a rather unpleasant death—one he’d pulled her from twice—and all she could talk about was not wanting his help. Or anyone’s. “There is no price.”

  “Maybe not this time,” she mumbled, petting her infernal cat.

  James rubbed the back of his neck. What had happened to this poor woman? He so desperately wanted to know more about her. Why did she oftentimes carry a pistol in her belt? What made her turn from lady to dragon in a matter of seconds? Why did she seem so frightened of Dodd? Why, when she thought no one was looking, did a deep sorrow linger in her eyes?

  The drone of ants lessened below, though the ground still moved. She followed his gaze, and her breath seemed to heighten.

  “We are safe here,” he reassured her. “If they were coming up, they would have done so by now.”

  “I fear for our friends. I hope they are all right.”

  “I’m sure they made it to the river.” He drew his knees up and placed his elbows atop them. “Where we should have gone.”

  Angeline frowned, the freckles on her nose clumping together. “You should have gone without me.”

  “Despite your aversion to rescuing, I couldn’t do that.”

  “And I couldn’t leave Stowy either.” She lifted the cat and planted a kiss on its head.

  James suddenly wished he were in Stowy’s shoes—or paws. He shook the thought away. It was such wayward thinking that had caused his many falls from grace. Angeline was a lady of the highest morals who didn’t deserve to be ogled or thought of with impurity. Despite the fact that she looked so incredibly beautiful and vulnerable at the moment. A sheen of perspiration made her skin glow and transformed curls framing her face into dangling rubies. The rest of her russet hair tumbled in waves over her shoulders, down her back and into her lap, where Stowy played with a strand clutched between his paws. James swallowed.

  Thankfully, the screech of a macaw sounded, followed by the chorus of birds returning to their song, jarring his thoughts. What was wrong with him? They’d almost been smothered by ants, their crops were ruined, and all he could think about was how being close to Angeline made him feel so alive.

  She peered through the canopy, her gaze scanning the ground below, where the swarm of ants had thinned considerably. “How long before it’s safe to return to New Hope?”

  Eyes the color of the violets his mother used to grow in their garden in Knoxville searched his. Only, the violet in Angeline’s eyes was more like a bottomless pool of swirling emotions. Emotions he longed to explore, along with those lips of hers she so often bit when she was nervous. He looked away. “We should wait until there’s not an ant in sight. I don’t want to risk getting trapped.”

  Nodding, she leaned back against the trunk and folded up the sleeves of her blouse against the sultry heat. A flicker of sunlight brushed over a pink scar on her forearm. He’d seen scars like that before. Many of them. All caused by knives embedded in flesh. But why would such a lovely lady like Angeline have been the victim of such violence? His gaze shifted to the ring she wore on a chain around her neck. Normally she kept it tucked within her bodice, but perhaps it had loosened during their mad dash through the jungle. Since it appeared to be a man’s ring, he’d always wondered about it but had been afraid to pry.

  Now seemed like the perfect time.

  “That ring you always wear around your neck, it must be important to you.”

  Her lips flattened. “I realize, Doctor, that we find ourselves inappropriately alone, but that does not grant you entrance into my personal life.” Her strident tone surprised him. Though he didn’t know why. The woman could switch moods faster than a chameleon could colors. Flinching at the sting in his heart, he held up his palms. “Douse those flames, your dragonship; I was just asking.”

  “Dragonship?” A sparkle lit her eyes, softening the hard sheen of only a moment before. “Sweet saints, where did that come from?” She laughed.

  “Sorry. Old habit.” James shrugged, thrilled to see her anger flee. “I used to read stories about dragons when I was a little boy. They fascinated me.” He shrugged. “Were dragons good? Evil? How did they make the fire that came out of their snouts?” He winked.

  “So am I to be compared to a dragon now?” She laughed as the tension dissipated between them. “You are a strange man, indeed. A doctor, or rather preacher, who is fascinated by creatures that don’t exist.”

  Her gaze snapped to his, and he knew she also referred to the invisible beasts he claimed were tormenting the colonists.

  A bird landed on a branch and eyed them curiously before beginning a serenade in a variety of tones and notes and pitches that would shame a symphony orchestra.

  Despite the joyful tune, she grew quiet. After several minutes, she lifted the ring and fingered it like it was the answer to all her prayers. “It was my father’s. He gave it to me on his deathbed.”

  Sunlight cut a swath through the canopy and swayed over the ruby in the center, setting it aflame.

  “It’s beautiful,” James said.

  “Yes.” She stared at it as if lost in another time.

  “When did he die?”

  “I was only seventeen.”

  “And your mother?”

  “At my birth.” She swiped away a tear, and James felt like a cad for bringing up such morbid memories.

  She held the ring up to him. “My father told me I was the ruby in the center and he and my mother were the topazes on either side, watching out for me.” She smiled but her voice caught.

  “They must have loved you very much,” James said. And with their death, this poor lady was left an orphan at only seventeen. Had family taken her in?

  She withdrew the ring, kissed it, and slipped it beneath her bodice. “So now you know.” She sounded disappointed.

  “I can keep a secret.”

  “It’s not a secret. It’s just mine to know and no one else’s.”

  “Then I am indeed honored you shared it with me.”

  She gave him a sly smile. “You coerced it out of me, sir. Took advantage of my weakness.”

  “Weakness? You? Never.”

  An expression akin to disbelief shadowed her face before she glanced away. He longed to bring those violet eyes back to his.

  “Friends share things about their lives.” He shifted on the hard bark. “It helps them know each other.” Did she consider him a friend? He hoped so, though he wanted so much more.

  She scooted away and peered down through the branches. “The more a person knows about someone, the more power they have over them.”

  Shock kept James silent. For several minutes, he watched her pet Stowy and gaze at the ground, no doubt searching for ants. Strands of hair blew in the breeze across her waist. “I want no power over you, Angeline.”

  “No?” Turning, she raised a disbelieving brow before glancing down again. “Everyone wants something.”

  James scratched his jaw. What had happened to make this lady so cynical?

  “The ants are gone,” she
announced.

  He inched beside her and peered through the lattice of leaves toward the distant fields. Small patches of dark still moved across ground that looked gray and empty in the blaring sun. “We should wait awhile longer. Just to make sure.”

  Regardless of whether the lady or the dragon appeared, James was rather enjoying his time with Angeline. When they climbed down from this tree, only God knew what they’d have to face: the loss of their crops, all their food, perhaps even their town. And he could only hope and pray there’d been no injuries. Or deaths. But for now, he would relish being close to a woman he’d spent five months with and yet felt he hardly knew. Every moment in her company only endeared her more to him. And made him want to dig deeper and deeper to understand everything about her. He’d never felt that way about a woman. Never thought he’d find a woman interesting enough and pure and good enough to marry. Yet, here was a woman he could care for. Here was a woman he could love. Perhaps his philandering wasn’t his own fault at all. How could any man resist a woman who flaunted herself before him like a French praline?

  “I lost my father as well,” he said hoping to resurrect the conversation. “Just a few years ago.”

  She stopped petting Stowy. “Then you understand.”

  “Yes. Though I was much older than you, it was hard nonetheless.”

  She nodded but said nothing. He wanted to continue talking…wanted to find that connection they seemed to have earlier. But he couldn’t tell her that he’d been responsible for his father’s death—that he might as well have shot the man himself. Instead he said, “I was not the same person back then.”

  This piqued her interest as she swept an attentive gaze his way.

  Prompting him to continue. “I’ve done some horrible things that I’m not proud of. Shameful things.”

  She didn’t seem surprised, nor did she inquire what things. Instead, she simply stared at him with an odd approval as if he’d just informed her that he bore the bloodline of the prince of Wales.

  Angeline could hardly believe James would divulge such information. Yet once he said it, she could hardly stop herself from pressing him to reveal more. Most of her mistrust of the doctor—aside from him being a man, of course—stemmed from their brief encounter over a year ago in a Tennessee tavern. Though she doubted he remembered her, was he now confessing the sins of that night?

  “We’ve all made mistakes, Doctor,” she said, releasing Stowy to wander around the branches. “The important thing is that we move past them and become better for them.”

  He scrubbed the dark stubble peppering his jaw. “Indeed. And also that we repent and allow God to change our hearts.”

  She scoffed inwardly. It was she and she alone who had changed her life. Not God. But she wouldn’t tell James that and start another theological debate.

  “So what were these sins, exactly?” She raised a brow, half teasing, half desperate to know.

  “Ah, who is being overbold now?”

  She smiled.

  “Drinking.” He hesitated, searching her eyes, then lowered his gaze. “Women.” Was that red crawling up his neck? “Too many of both.”

  Memories of him lying on a ratty, stained bed above a tavern that blared and thumped with music and laughter drifted through her mind. He’d been so drunk, he could hardly stand. And covered in blood. Too much to have come from the gash at the side of his mouth. But he’d been kind. And sad. Terribly sad about something. Which is why she remembered him from all the others.

  Now, she laid a hand on his and said the words that screamed true within her—words she wanted so desperately to be true. “You are right. You’re not that man anymore.”

  This brought his eyes up to search hers, the hope within them conflicting with the pain and despair that had filled them that night long ago. He pressed a thumb on the scar on the right side of his mouth. “Thank you for saying that.”

  If only she believed it of herself. Shoving aside her morbid thoughts, she offered him a smile. “And now we both know a secret about the other.”

  “Mine is much more incriminating.”

  “But safe with me.”

  He nodded, and his trust in her caused her heart to swell.

  Stowy pounced on James’s leg and began gnawing at his trousers. “Hey, you little rascal!” Clutching the cat, he flipped him on his back and knuckled his tummy. Stowy pawed James’s hand in a mock battle for dominance he was sure to lose.

  Watching how gentle and playful James was with Stowy, Angeline’s heart felt lighter than a feather. Perhaps she could trust this man. He had changed, hadn’t he? He’d made mistakes, but he freely admitted them. And when he could have lied about his past, he’d been honest with her. Besides, hadn’t Angeline changed? Hadn’t this new life in Brazil offered her a second chance? How could she deny the same to James?

  Setting Stowy between them, James raised his gaze to hers. A breeze ripe with oranges and mossy earth swirled around them, toying with the hair at his collar as they stared into each other’s eyes, searching, wondering, hoping…daring to trust.

  Raising his hand, he cupped her jaw and swept a thumb over her cheek. Angeline’s heart quickened. A tingle ran across her skin. He glanced at her lips and licked his own. And she knew he wanted to kiss her. More than that, she desperately wanted to kiss him back.

  C

  HAPTER 9

  James! Angeline!” Blake’s baritone shout jarred them apart, drew them embarrassed to the edge of their tree terrace to see their friends combing the jungle below. With an odd reluctance, James had assisted Angeline and Stowy to the ground, ending their precious time together—moments that had given him hope for a promising future.

  A hope, however, that was dashed as he now stood beside Hayden and Blake and some of the other colonists before their desolate fields. Where once stalks of sugarcane had poked through fertile ground, where once coffee seedlings budded fresh leaves, now there was naught but barren dirt dotted with bare twigs. Stunned silence shrouded the group, save for the occasional sob from the women and curse from the men.

  A few leftover ants skittered about, separated from their army, their fate in the hands of angry colonists who stomped the life from them. One man even pulled a pistol and shot one, causing everyone to jump. Finally, however, when it became obvious no amount of staring would bring back their crops, the group assembled, one by one, in the meeting area, somber and dejected, and—all but James and Angeline—soaked to the bone. Blake stood in front of the crowd, Eliza by his side, while James took a spot beside him, should the leader of the colony need reinforcement.

  Yet from the expression on the colonel’s face, he needed much more than reinforcement. He needed encouragement. And hope. Something they all lacked at the moment.

  “What are we gonna do, Colonel?” one of the farmers asked before Blake could even begin.

  “We are going to plant again,” he responded without hesitation.

  The colonists’ groans were silenced by a lift of his hand. “We still have most of the sugar splints. Though the ants stripped them, they didn’t eat them entirely. With some care, they should sprout again. The coffee might too, though we still have some seed if need be.”

  “Preposterous!” Mr. Scott, Magnolia’s father, bellowed. “Start over again?”

  “But we have no food,” a woman whined.

  Eliza stepped forward. “We still have rice and beans. They didn’t eat through the burlap sacks.”

  “And we have fish from the river,” Angeline offered.

  “And fruit and wild boar from jungle,” Thiago said. “I can teach men to hunt better.”

  Mr. Lewis took a swig from his flask and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “All that work wasted.”

  “It will be wasted if we give up.” Hayden ran a hand through his moist hair.

  “I say we quit and go home,” one of the ex-soldiers shouted, glancing over the mob. “Enough is enough.”

  “Besides, how can we pay the emperor what we o
we him for the land now?”

  “We will pay him when we can pay him,” James said. “Come now, surely you aren’t ready to give up after one setback? Not after all we’ve endured to make it this far.”

  Shadows crept out from hiding as the sun lowered in the sky, bringing a breeze that caused many of the colonists to shiver in their wet clothes.

  “We’ve had more than our share of trouble,” one man yelled.

  Another farmer slapped his hat on his knee. “At least back in Georgia, I wasn’t in debt.”

  “But we are still alive!” Angeline said, sharing a smile with James that caused his heart to leap. “No one was hurt. And our huts, tools, and dried food are intact.”

  Standing beside his sister, Moses, the freedman, scooped one of her children in his arms. “I says we stay.” His gaze met Mable’s, who stood beside her owner, Mr. Scott.

  The elderly man let out a bloated grunt. “And, pray tell, who cares what a slave thinks? I, for one, plan to leave.”

  “Freedman, Papa. He’s not a slave anymore.” Magnolia nodded at Moses before turning to her mother, who wrung her hands together in her usual worried fit.

  Breaking through the crowd, Patrick Gale sauntered into the clearing like a king surveying his subjects. “True, we expected hardships in this new land, but we certainly didn’t expect complete destruction. I say none of us should feel guilty for leaving now.”

  Grunts of assent rang through the air.

  James frowned. Of course the man wanted people to leave. Fewer people to stake a claim on his gold. If he ever found any, and if he intended to share it with the colony like he promised. Dodd, his partner in the mad treasure quest, sat off to the side, nodding his agreement.

  “Go back to what?” Blake shifted weight off his sore leg. “Back to destruction, devastation, and tyranny? Why, I’d rather deal with nature’s blows than man’s, wouldn’t you?”