Shades of Winter

by Linda Fallon

  “What if it never goes away?” Lucien asked angrily. “What if that evil is always a part of me?”

  Amazingly, the preacher smiled. “Don’t concern yourself, son. The fact of the matter is, corrupt men don’t worry about the state of their souls. Only a good man would be concerned that an evil might invade his spirit.”

  “I understand what you’re saying, but what if that’s not enough? I’m talking about an evil so dark …” he shook his head. How best to explain Scrydan and the memories Lucien carried?

  “Sit down.” The preacher indicated the front pew, and after a moment Lucien sat. So did the preacher.

  The church was oddly peaceful, in the dim light and the quiet of night.

  “If there is pure evil in the world,” the Reverend Watts finally said, “then by all logic there must be pure good, as well.”

  Lucien shook his head. “It’s not that simple.”

  “Of course it is. There’s a balance to the universe, just as there is a balance inside you. Inside me. Every person on the face of the earth struggles between good and evil at one time or another. Perhaps it’s a fleeting decision that might affect the rest of their lives. Perhaps it’s an ongoing battle. No matter how or when the battle is fought … it’s something we all go through.”

  “Not like this.”

  Pure good. Lucien didn’t believe in the concept any more than he had believed in pure evil, before he’d met Scrydan in the most intimate way.

  “Balance, Mr. Thorpe,” the Reverend Watts said softly. “Where there is one, there must be the other.”

  Lucien turned his head to look at the aging preacher. “You don’t know what I can do, what I have seen.”

  The preacher smiled. “I have heard stories.”

  Stories he likely dismissed as hogwash. “I talk to the dead,” Lucien said sharply, making sure the preacher understood exactly who and what he was talking to. When he knew, he’d be frightened and angry like all the rest. “I see ghosts in every corner, around every person I meet.”

  “Then God has blessed you with a precious gift,” Watts said serenely.

  Lucien was taken aback. Most … no, all preachers were terrified of what he could do. He was an abomination. A freak. By his very existence, he threw what they knew of their faith back in their faces.

  There was one spirit—not an earthbound ghost but a being of bright light—over the preacher’s right shoulder. A woman. She smiled. Lucien knew without asking that this was the Reverend Watts’ late wife. Even now, years after her death, she gave him the gift of peace.

  “What if the evil is stronger than the good?” Lucien asked hoarsely.

  “It’s not. Trust me. I’ve spent my lifetime believing that fact.” He laid a comforting hand on Lucien’s arm.

  “What if it wins the battle?”

  The old man shook his head. “Evil only wins if you allow it.”

  Lucien wasn’t buying the simplicity that was offered here. Maybe life had once been simple, but no more.

  “You’re a very lucky man,” the Reverend Watts said. “Love is the greatest good of all, and you have that in abundance.”

  “Love comes and goes …”

  “It does not,” the preacher interrupted, sounding insulted for the first time since they’d begun this conversation. “Love is the greatest power on the face of the earth. I believe that with everything I have, Mr. Thorpe. It’s that belief that gets me out of bed in the morning, that sends me here to polish this fine wood and talk to God when I can’t sleep.”

  It was a simple answer for a simple world. Lucien’s world was anything but simple. He looked around at the modest elegance of the small church. No, he wasn’t afraid of churches. He never had been. He was fearful of the people in them. He was afraid of people who were frightened, and angry, and dimwitted.

  “All my life, people have run from me because they don’t understand what I can do.”

  “People are not perfect,” the preacher offered. “We’re not meant to be.”

  “I don’t expect perfection.”

  “From anyone but yourself?” the preacher asked.

  “I’ve made so many mistakes.”

  “We all make mistakes. That’s how we learn.”

  “You have an answer for everything, don’t you?” Lucien snapped.

  The Reverend Watts smiled. “That’s my job.”

  Lucien slumped lower in the pew. This was not the conversation he had come here to have! He should’ve ridden past without stopping … but he couldn’t do that. “Evie wanted to be married here,” he said absently. “She likes you. She said you were a good man.”

  “I appreciate that. She seems to be an inordinately good woman.”

  “She is.”

  She was too good for him. Too good to spend her life chasing ghosts and pulling him back from the edge of death. And that would happen, wouldn’t it? Time and time again until it killed them both.

  “We all have difficult choices to make, now and then,” the preacher said. “Sit here for a while and think yours over, if you’d like.”

  “I need to get going,” Lucien said, but he did not stand.

  “If you must.” The Reverend Watts began dusting again, and Lucien stayed put. He didn’t move. He didn’t argue with the preacher.

  He only wanted what was best for Evie. It was all he’d ever wanted. He loved her enough to give her what she needed. What was best for her and what she wanted were not the same … not this time.

  Eve was awakened from a deep sleep by two things. First, someone was banging on her front door. Two, Lucien did not sleep beside her.

  Something was wrong. She leapt from the bed, lit a candle, grabbed her wrapper, and pulled it closed with one hand as she ran down the stairs. She threw the door open half expecting to see Lucien standing there, but it was Daisy who waited on the porch, wringing her hands. Lionel sat in the driver’s seat of a small buggy.

  Oh, no. What had Daisy done?

  “It’s Lucien,” Daisy said as she rushed into the house.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “He’s lost his mind!”

  Eve’s heart dropped. Scrydan was back. The events of the weekend had made him mad. He was hurt and alone …

  “Oh, not literally,” Daisy said when she saw the expression on Eve’s face. “I just … get dressed and come with us.”

  Daisy signaled for Lionel to come inside and wait in the warmth of the house, and then she followed Eve up the stairs. Eve had thrown open her wardrobe and blindly grabbed a dress. It was her old faithful brown.

  “No!” Daisy said as she ran into the room.

  Eve held the brown dress in one hand. “What difference does it make what I wear?”

  Daisy reached past her and grabbed one of the new dresses Laverne had recently made. “This blue looks a little warmer, and it is quite chilly out tonight.”

  Not caring what she wore, Eve took the blue. When she began to remove her wrapper, Daisy turned her back. But she didn’t leave the room to wait with Lionel.

  “Is Lucien all right?” Eve asked as she quickly dressed.

  “I suppose,” Daisy said absently. “He is rather odd, Eve. The things he does don’t always make sense, do they?”

  “No.”

  “If I ever marry,” Daisy said stoically, “it will be to a solid, dependable, ordinary, quiet, stable and logical man.”

  “Then I suggest you steer well clear of Lionel,” Eve said.

  “Lionel?” Daisy asked, sounding almost confused. “Oh, yes. I did think he was handsome when I first saw him, and I suppose he is. But he’s not really my type.”

  Eve breathed a sigh of relief. “Then why are you two together tonight?”

  “Oh, we’re not together,” Daisy said. “It’s just that Lucien asked me to come here to fetch you, and O’Hara said he’d drive, in order to speed things along, but Lucien said no and asked Lionel to drive instead.”

  “Daisy, are you going to tell me what’s going on h
ere?”

  “I can’t,” she said. “He made me promise.”

  Eve glanced at the clock on her desk, as she finished dressing. It was almost midnight. What could have everyone up and about at this hour? Whatever it was, she suspected it was not good. Lucien simply wanted to tell her the bad news himself.

  Eve twisted her hair up and used a handful of pins to hold the waving strands in place, and then she grabbed the candle and Daisy’s hand and pulled her friend out of the room. Lionel waited at the foot of the stairs, distracted and impatient.

  “Let’s go,” Eve said as she grabbed her dark blue cloak from a peg in the entryway, blew out the candle, and ushered her friends through the front door.

  Lucien was nervous. He was never nervous! Not like this. He fidgeted, he stared at the front door of the church. Any minute now. Any minute, Eve would come through that door. What would she say? It would serve him right if she thought him presumptuous and arrogant and left him standing here.

  Yes, that would be fitting.

  The doors flew open, and Eve ran into the church. Daisy and Lionel were right behind her.

  Eve stopped as she stepped into the aisle, her eyes on the candelabras that were filled with white candles that flickered in the dim church, then on the friends who were spread throughout the pews; on one side Katherine and Garrick sat far apart and in different rows; Hugh and O’Hara were seated side by side on the other. Lionel and Daisy parted ways as they came through the door. Lionel joined his colleagues. Daisy sat beside Katherine.

  Finally, Eve turned her curious eyes to him and the Reverend Watts. “What are we doing here?” she asked as she walked down the aisle.

  “Getting married,” Lucien said. “I hope. If you’ll still have me. I know there’s no fancy wedding dress and no reception and no flowers. But we’re here, and the people we care about are here, and … I thought maybe that would be enough.”

  His fear eased a little when she smiled. “You planned this all yourself.”

  “I did,” he confessed as she reached him. His need to tell the truth compelled him to add, “I was leaving town, Evie.” He made his confession in a lowered voice, so no one else would hear. “I was running away because I am so afraid that someday I might hurt you.”

  “But you didn’t leave,” she whispered.

  “No. I couldn’t. Even though I think you will be safer and happier without me, I could not make myself leave.” His heart climbed into his throat.

  “It’s a good thing. I would have tracked you down like a criminal if you’d left me.”

  He smiled. She was a fine woman, and she was his. “I will spend my life trying to make everything right for you.”

  “And I will do the same for you,” she whispered.

  For the first time, he knew he was doing the right thing, in staying. Eve did need him, in a different way than he needed her. “Will you truly take me, for better or for worse?”

  “You know I will.”

  He took her hand in his and bent to kiss the knuckles. “You are the good in my life. I need you. I will not survive without you. It’s so incredibly selfish of me to take you as my wife.”

  “Do you love me?”

  “You know I do, more than anything.”

  She smiled at him, and at that moment there was only good in his world. “Then let’s get married.”

  O’Hara walked toward the train station, bag in hand. Lucien and Eve were finally married. It had taken them long enough! How appropriate, that they had been married at midnight. They were so perfectly suited, he wavered between being happy for his friends, and insanely jealous.

  Lionel and Hugh walked ahead of him, and Lionel carried Hugh’s bag, ignoring the older man’s protest that he was fine and needed no assistance. Ha. Hugh was still not himself, and probably wouldn’t be for weeks. He refused to talk about what had happened that night. Still, he was healthy enough to make his escape from Plummerville.

  “Where are you headed?”

  O’Hara, surprised by the intrusive voice at his side, slowed his step as Garrick Hunt joined him. Garrick carried his own satchel. “Savannah, first, and then north.”

  Garrick nodded. “I’m going to Savannah, too, and from there I’m going west.” He didn’t seem too pleased with the plan.

  “Are you sure that’s what you want?”

  “It’s what I’m going to get,” Garrick muttered. “Are you married, by any chance?”

  “No,” O’Hara said too sternly.

  “Any special woman in your life?”

  O’Hara immediately thought of and dismissed Daisy Willard. “No.”

  “Then I don’t suppose you can help me by explaining exactly what they want from a man.”

  “I have seen inside the mind of many a woman,” O’Hara said wisely. “And no, I have no idea what they want. I don’t think they know. Well, except to torture us, simply because we are men. They need no more excuse.”

  “Torture,” Garrick muttered. “That’s it.”

  “I know it’s early in the day,” O’Hara said as they continued down the street, “but I would be extremely grateful if you’d pass over that flask of yours.”

  Garrick muttered something O’Hara couldn’t decipher.

  “What?”

  “I threw it away,” he said more succinctly.

  O’Hara was horrified. “Why?”

  “I don’t drink, anymore,” Garrick said.

  “Why not?”

  “I prefer my pain undulled, at the present time,” Garrick said bitterly.

  O’Hara had a feeling Garrick would not make a pleasant companion on the ride to Savannah.

  The station was ahead, the train waiting for the quickly arriving departure time. The two men reached the boardwalk when a breathless feminine voice called, “Wait!”

  Daisy? O’Hara turned, and so did Garrick. Katherine Cassidy stood there, wearing a bright yellow dress and carrying a small bag of her own.

  “Do you still want me to go with you?” she asked, her eyes on Garrick. She held her breath as she awaited his answer.

  Garrick dropped his bag on the street and walked to her, a smile on his previously sour face. “Of course I do.”

  “I was going to let you leave. I’m so afraid …” she dropped her bag as Garrick put his arms around her and lifted her off her feet.

  “But I couldn’t do it,” she said as he swung her around. “I couldn’t just sit there and do nothing while you left.” She took a deep breath when he placed her back on her feet. “So I wrote a note leaving the house to Elijah and his mother, since Buster said they don’t have much at their little place. I put on my new dress and packed a comb and my mother’s brooch and a couple of other personal things, and I walked away. I walked away from everything and I’m not going back. I love you, Garrick. I love you.”

  Garrick whispered some sweet nothings into Katherine’s ear as he drew her close, and her answering smile told O’Hara too well exactly what he’d said. Love. What a load of …

  “Care to come to another wedding?” Garrick asked as he turned, one arm around Katherine while he grabbed up her bag.

  “No,” O’Hara said succinctly. He’d seen enough weddings for now. “I have a train to catch.”

  “So do we. We’ll get married in Savannah.” He looked down at a beaming Katherine. “Oh God, I never asked. You will marry me, won’t you?”

  “Of course I will.”

  Garrick’s answer was a disgusting bright smile.

  O’Hara picked up his pace and left the lovers behind. Listening to them was just too depressing.

  Would he be forced to come face to face with happy couples for the rest of his life? Was God rubbing his face in the fact that no woman would ever have him? He’d thought perhaps Daisy was truly different, that she would be the one to set aside her fears about what he could do and see the man behind the freakish power.

  But no.

  At least he knew Lionel and Hugh were equally miserable, where women wer
e concerned.

  Inside the train Lionel and Hugh sat together, and O’Hara took the seat facing them. He could not wait to get out of Plummerville, once and for all.

  “I thought perhaps Eve and Lucien would be here to see us off,” Hugh said, glancing through the windows to the platform below.

  O’Hara snorted. The way those two had looked when they left the church last night, he didn’t expect they’d leave their cottage for at least a month, unless they ran out of food.

  “I expect they’re … busy this morning,” Lionel said tactfully.

  “Oh,” Hugh said. “We’ll have to pay a visit again and see how they’re doing, perhaps in a few months’ time.”

  “Good idea,” Lionel said.

  “Not me,” O’Hara said tersely. “This little hick town with its little narrow-minded bumpkins is not for me. You two visit. I’ll pass my spare time elsewhere, thank you very much.”

  New York, Boston, Savannah. Anywhere Daisy Willard wasn’t.

  Garrick and Katherine stepped onto the train, laughing and holding hands, the extra ticket for Katherine purchased just in time. They sat at the opposite end of the car, where they could continue to whisper those annoying sweet nothings to each other.

  O’Hara tapped his fingers against his thigh. How long would he have to wait to escape from Plummerville? He was as much a prisoner here as he’d been in the Honeycutt Hotel. The train began to move at last. Thank God! The sooner he got away from this place, the better off he’d be. He willed the conveyance to move faster, as it crept along an inch at a time.

  And then Lionel said, “Isn’t that Daisy Willard?”

  O’Hara’s head snapped around. Sure enough, there was Daisy, squinting her eyes as she searched the smoky windows of the train. For him? Perhaps?

  He jumped from his seat and ran to the door, holding onto a handrail while he stepped down onto the rail car’s steps. Daisy saw him and she began to run. “I wanted to say goodbye,” she shouted as she ran, keeping pace with the slow-moving train.

  “You’re late!”

  “I couldn’t decide what to wear!” She ran faster, came a little closer.

  O’Hara shook his head. Women. He did not understand them. He especially did not understand this one.