After the frost f

by Chance, Megan

  "Are we here?" Sarah asked sleepily, lifting her head from Lillian's lap.

  "We sure are, Little Bit." Rand climbed from the seat and reached for her, planting her firmly on the ground before he helped Lillian down. "Don't go running off by yourself, Sarah."

  In the wagon bed Belle got to her feet. "I didn't expect anythin' this big," she said. "Why don't you come on with me, Sarah? You can show me around."

  "No!" Rand and Lillian spoke at once.

  Lillian stepped forward and took Sarah's hand firmly. "I need Sarah's help up at the grange exhibits this morning."

  Belle didn't look at her mother. Instead her gaze fastened on Rand. The mix of anger and hurt in her eyes made him uncomfortable. Her words of yesterday came circling back, a low whisper in his ear: "Since when do you decide how the world works, Rand? Since when do you decide what's right and what's wrong?"

  He cleared his throat and turned away, moving quickly to the horses.

  "You're goin' to the grange?" Belle's voice carried in the clear, cold air, following her mother. "Maybe I’ll come with you."

  "Why don't you stay here?" Lillian said. "I'm sure Rand could use your help, couldn't you, Randall?"

  "Couldn't you, Randall?" Rand struggled to restrain the urge to throttle his stepmother. His fingers were suddenly stiff and awkward as he fumbled with the harness. But he knew what Lillian was doing, knew she was trying to keep Sarah away from Belle, and so he heard his voice, low, barely audible. "Yeah. Yeah, I could use your help."

  Behind him he heard Lillian grapple with the crate, and he let her struggle alone, feeling too angry to help. "Good," she said a little breathlessly. "Then we'll go on up."

  Rand nodded briefly. He heard Belle mumble something, but he wasn't sure what it was. Then he heard only the sounds of the people around them and Lillian and Sarah's footsteps as they started off across the brown grass.

  He didn't bother to turn around, just kept working with the horses, setting out feed and water, wishing— hoping—that when he went back to the wagon, Belle would be miraculously gone.

  "So what can I do?"

  He winced at the sound of her voice. It was close. Too close. She had left the wagon to come up behind him, and he hadn't even heard her approach. Rand closed his eyes briefly, took a deep breath, and straightened. "Nothing," he said slowly. "You don't have to help me, Belle. Go on off and find your friends."

  She laughed, a short, oddly shaky sound. "What friends?"

  "Lydia Boston's still around."

  "Is she? I thought Lydia would've found a husband by now."

  He unfastened the harness, moved back to lower the tongue of the wagon. "No."

  She stepped out of his way. "Oh. Lydia was always such a flirt, I thought sure she'd be married."

  "She's too much of a flirt," he said tersely.

  "No worse than her brother." Belle paused. "Charlie's the biggest ladies' man I ever saw. I s'pose he's married."

  Rand had a fleeting image of Charlie Boston and Marie Scholl at the last church social, laughing together. The tongue of the wagon slipped from his fingers, the chain pinched him. Rand cursed and yanked his hand away. "Dammit! No, he's not married."

  "Oh." He heard her fidget. "Are you sure you don't need any help?"

  He threw the chain to the ground and swiveled to face her. She was standing even closer than he'd thought, close enough so that she backed away at his movement. Her arms were crossed over her chest, hands tucked beneath for warmth, and in the moment of her surprise she looked heartbreakingly young. Young, innocent, wary. Familiar. Jesus, too familiar.

  Rand cursed again and ran a hand through his hair. "I don't need any help, Belle."

  "I see." She licked her lips, looked away thoughtfully. He waited for a sarcastic comment, but all she did was nod and motion toward the wagon. "Where are we takin' the pig?"

  It surprised him. He'd expected her to say something to disarm him, some honest, if cynical statement meant only to confuse him. He had not expected her to pretend they didn't both know exactly why she was here. Her unpredictability bothered him, threw him off as well as a comment might have done. Rand frowned irritably. "Look, Belle, I said I don't need—"

  "I know what you said." She looked straight at him, and those brown eyes were guileless, shockingly so. "But I imagine if I go on up to the grange, Mama will somehow find somethin' for me to do—somethin' on the other side of the fair from Sarah, no doubt. And ..." She took a deep breath, her voice softened. "And I have no place else to go."

  This was it, the honesty he'd been waiting for, only there was no sarcasm, and that disarmed him even more. Rand looked at her standing there, arms locked, her face pinched and tight from the cold, and he thought again of her words yesterday, felt the hot touch of guilt, the ache of fear.

  "All right," he said abruptly. "Come on."

  He strode to the wagon, to the narrow pen he'd set up in the back. Bertha paced and snorted inside, rubbing her snout against the wooden slats anxiously when she saw him, trying to rid herself of the rope around her upper jaw. "It's all right, girl," he murmured reassuringly. He gestured for Belle to come around to the back of the wagon. "She'll want to run," he said. "But she won't run over you. So just stand there until I get hold of the rope."

  Belle nodded.

  He reached for the latch on the pen. "Easy, girl," he coaxed, slipping the pin slowly from the loop. "Easy, now . . ."

  Everything seemed to happen at once. Bertha pressed against the door. The latch sprung open so hard, it clipped Rand's hand. He jumped away, cursing as the door on the pen sprang open and out crashed two hundred and ten pounds of prime Poland China hog. She scrambled off the wagon bed, and the rest happened in a flash. He saw Bertha streak by, saw Belle take off after her, skirts flying.

  Rand pushed away from the wagon and hit the grass at a flying run. People dodged and yelled around him, but all he saw was Belle a few steps ahead, and beyond her Bertha, trailing her lead rope. Desperately Rand ran harder. The breeding for the next year depended on that goddamned hog—

  He surged past Belle just as Bertha headed for the road. Christ, the road . . .

  He had barely finished thinking the words when he saw the wagons. They were moving smartly up Lundy's Lane, heading straight for Bertha.

  "Stop her!" Belle yelled behind him. "Runaway pig! Stop her!"

  The man on the lead wagon looked up. He waved his arm and urged his horses forward—right into Bertha's path. She hesitated, looked this way, that, and then she set her forelegs, trying desperately to stop when she saw there was no escape.

  It was all the time he needed. Rand lunged. He landed hard, knocking away his breath, sending Bertha squealing to the ground. His fist closed on the rope around her upper jaw.

  Belle crashed on top of him, slamming him and Bertha into the ground. Skirts, legs, feet tangled with his, and he heard her hoarse rasping, felt the uneven rise and fall of her chest.

  "It's all right." He breathed. "We've got her. We've got her."

  The man on the wagon jumped down and hurried over. "You two all right? That was some run there."

  Rand looked up and nodded. "We're—fine," he managed. "Thanks. That was quick thinking."

  "No problem." The man pushed back the brim of his hat and looked them over thoughtfully. "You need some help gettin' that pig back?"

  "No—no." Rand glanced at Bertha, who was heaving beneath him, but quiet. "She's not going anywhere soon."

  "Okay, then. Good luck." The man nodded and walked away.

  Rand heard Belle's quiet laughter at his ear. "No, she's not goin' anywhere," she said. She scrambled back, pulling away from him. Her thick braid slid across his face and then fell away. He was suddenly cold.

  "You plannin' on lyin' on that pig forever?" she asked.

  He sat up, keeping a firm grip on the rope, and twisted to look at Belle. She knelt beside him, one hand still on the hog's heaving side. She caught his gaze and raised an eyebrow. There was the thin trace
of a smile on her lips. "Well, Rand, guess you needed my help after all."

  The teasing struck a chord, pierced through him with the sharp sweetness of the past. Rand swallowed. "Yeah, I guess I did."

  "You're welcome."

  "Thanks."

  She scrutinized Bertha and then looked back to him. "She'll need a bath again, though. Guess that'll teach you to get up before dawn to wash a pig." She took a deep breath, shook her head slowly. "I have to say you surprised me. Damn, I didn't know you could run that fast."

  Then she smiled.

  Jesus, that smile. Rand lost his breath. He saw the teasing laughter glowing from her brown eyes, illuminating her face. Laughter he hadn't seen for a long time —God, it seemed like forever.

  He didn't want to smile back. Tried to hold it off, but he couldn't, and finally he gave in and grinned at her, unable to help himself, in that moment wanting only to laugh with her, to tease her while her hair glowed golden and shining in the morning sun. He had missed this. How he had missed it.

  Chapter 12

  Belle leaned back against the rough clapboards of the grange building, pressing her palms hard against the sun-warmed wood. It had been two hours since she'd left Rand at the livestock ring, but she couldn't keep from thinking about him, couldn't stop reliving the morning over and over again in her mind. The images were so clear: the frozen sunlight, the smell of grass and dirt, the way the wind grabbed her hair as she chased that damned hog. Belle didn't know if she would ever forget the sight of Rand sprawled atop that pig, his hair in his face and mud stains on his cheek. There had been nothing dignified about him in that moment, nothing stiff or strained as he struggled with a squealing Bertha. No, in that moment he had been the Rand that Belle remembered, the friend she'd missed all these years.

  And in the blink of an eye she had forgotten he was anything else.

  It had all been so easy. Too easy. The last six years fell away as if they'd never existed. She hadn't known it was possible—could it be possible?—to forget so easily. She'd thought all her feelings for him were dead, that she had nothing but contempt and anger left now. But this morning feelings she'd spent years nurturing had disappeared, and she'd been left only with the ones she told herself she didn't remember, the ones she didn't want to feel.

  It began yesterday, she knew. With the snake, and the marks on the door, and the way he'd stood at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes dark with desperation and fear.

  That image haunted her all through the night and all this morning. She wanted to take comfort from it, wanted to enjoy the feeling of having some kind of power over him, of being able to make him afraid.

  But she couldn't. Because he wasn't afraid of her, and she knew it. He was afraid for Sarah, and it made all the difference in the world.

  He was afraid Belle would hurt her own daughter.

  It made her heart ache to think about it. Yesterday it hurt so badly that she had wanted nothing more than for him to trust her—as if his trust would make her own suffering go away.

  It was why she'd promised not to tell Sarah the truth. His concern for their daughter made Belle feel small and inadequate, and she remembered the black marks on the bedroom door with a suffocating sense of desperation. She wanted Sarah to know who her real mother was, but the concern in Rand's eyes held Belle back. There was something about that concern she didn't understand, and she was afraid of telling Sarah until she understood it. She knew so damn little about being a mother.

  So she promised, even though the words meant nothing. She said them to comfort him, and instead she'd been comforted. The relief in his eyes made her feel as if she'd done the right thing.

  She didn't like that feeling. She did not want to care what he thought of her. She'd spent years learning not to care. She'd thought she was strong, thought nothing Rand could do would matter to her again, but she was wrong. How was it she'd been so defenseless?

  Belle closed her eyes, forced herself to remember a harsh, raw voice. "I don't want you, don't you understand? Don't you understand?"

  Humiliation surged through her again, and Belle opened her eyes, staring into the bright sunshine and seeing the shadows of a dark November night, feeling the harshness of memory as vividly as if it had been yesterday.

  No, she would not forget again. Not ever again. And she would never forgive him.

  She took strength from the knowledge, grabbed onto it like a shield. As long as she didn't forgive him, he couldn't hurt her, he couldn't get close enough. She could protect herself against the little hurts, could even bear them. She could be civil to Rand, could even be friendly for Sarah's sake, but she would never care for him again. As long as she remembered that, she would be fine.

  Belle took a deep breath and moved away from the wall. She'd come to the fair to be with Sarah, and she wanted to do just that. The crowds around the exhibit hall were dwindling, and she glanced at the sun, trying to gauge the time. The trotting races were in less than an hour. It was what she'd spent this whole miserable day waiting for. At last the chance to be with her daughter. Belle went through the entryway leading to the exhibits. She would lock her mother in the horse barn if she had to in order to get to Sarah.

  The judge's booming voice echoed in the rafters. Women gathered before the makeshift podium, anxiously awaiting the results of the judging. She saw Dorothy Alspaugh straining near the front. Belle stood on her toes, craning her neck to spot her mother. It didn't take

  long. Lillian was near Dorothy, and unlike the other ladies there, she was silent and still. Not even the slightest excitement showed on her face, and she certainly wasn't twittering like the others. Belle smiled dryly. She doubted her mother even knew how to twitter.

  "Third place, with a prize of twenty-five cents, goes to Mrs. Emily Groves, for her outstanding corn relish."

  There was a flurry of clapping. Belle pushed her way through the crowd, barely sparing a glance for the podium, where Mrs. Groves was graciously accepting her ribbon.

  "Second place, with a prize of fifty cents, goes to Miss Margaret Browning, for a simply wonderful pickle relish."

  Her mother was just in front. Belle uttered a hasty "excuse me" to the woman beside her and squeezed through. As she'd thought, Sarah stood beside Lillian, looking bored and restless while Lillian watched the judge with rapt attention.

  "Hey there, Sarah," Belle said in a loud whisper. "Ready to go to the races?"

  Sarah whipped around, and Lillian turned, looking startled. "Isabelle!" she said, frowning. "What are you doing here? I thought Rand—"

  "I lost Rand about three hours ago, Mama," Belle said impatiently. "I came lookin' for Sarah. The races start—"

  "Shhh!" The woman next to her glared. "They're announcin' first prize!"

  Lillian jerked back to the front. The judge smiled broadly, holding up a blue ribbon.

  "And now, at long last, it's time for the first prize in the relish class." He paused for effect. "First prize, with an award of one dollar and fifty cents, goes to Mrs. Dorothy Alspaugh, for her delicious pepper relish!"

  Dorothy gave a little scream of delight and hurried up to the podium to accept her award. Lillian set her mouth, took Sarah's hand, and started to move away.

  Belle followed. "You look upset, Mama," she noted. "I didn't know you even entered a relish."

  "I didn't."

  "Well, don't feel so bad. I expect your applesauce cake'll win plenty of prizes."

  Lillian waited until they were just beyond the crowd, and then she whirled around with a sharp sound of exasperation. "What do you want, Isabelle?"

  Belle widened her eyes innocently. "Why, I told you already, Mama. I just want to take Sarah to the races."

  "The races?" Sarah's face brightened. "Oh, Grandma, the races!"

  Lillian gave Belle an annoyed look. "Sarah's too young."

  "I don't know why. I'll hold her on my shoulders so she can see."

  "Isabelle, I really don't think—"

  "She won't get los
t if she's with me." Belle ignored her mother's protest, bending until she was even with Sarah. "What d'you say, Sarah? Want to go watch the horses with me?"

  Sarah looked hopefully up at Lillian. "Please, Grandma? Please, can I?"

  "Your father and I decided you could go when you were ten," Lillian said.

  "I'll be ten when the piggies are born!"

  Belle lifted a brow and looked at her mother. "Did you hear that, Mama? She says she'll be ten in no time."

  "I said no."

  Belle straightened, working to keep her resentment from surfacing. "Mama, I think you'd better let Sarah go with me," she said softly.

  Lillian gave her a sharp look. "I don't think . . ." she said, abruptly trailing off.

  Belle saw the spark of uncertainty in her mother's eyes, and she knew suddenly that Rand had told Lillian about her threat to tell Sarah the truth—and that Lillian was afraid she would. Belle's throat tightened. God, even her own mother didn't trust her. Her own mother.

  She told herself she shouldn't be surprised. Lillian had never trusted her with anything, and Belle didn't know why she expected it now. But still, the thought brought a stab of pain that Belle forced away. It didn't matter. She wanted Sarah, and she would do whatever it took to get her. If that meant letting her mother believe she would go back on her word, then so be it.

  Belle took a deep breath. She could almost see Lillian's mind churning, could almost hear her thoughts: "Will she tell Sarah the truth? Or won't she? Should 1 take the risk?"

  Deliberately Belle smiled.

  Lillian looked startled, and then she stepped back. "Very well," she said stiffly. "But we'll all go to the races. Together."

  Belle felt her smile waver. She hadn't thought Lillian would decide to come with them, but she guessed it wasn't that important anyway. There was no way her mother would put Sarah on her shoulders, no way Lillian would laugh and shout and scream for the horse to win. Belle knew already how Lillian would be. Stiff, unamused. Easy to ignore.