Rattled, she closed her eyes. “I don’t think so.”
When he finished with her hands and arms, he rewet the cloth and started on her foot. Embarrassed that a man was not only seeing her bare feet and ankles, but was also washing them, Meg curled her toes and tried to pull away, but he held her in a firm but gentle grip.
“You have some cuts on your feet,” he told her. “But I think I got all the grit out. Do you have something to put on them?”
“Peroxide,” she said.
That smile flashed again, briefly. “Ah, yes. Peroxide. My mother thinks it will raise the dead.”
For just an instant, Meg forgot the circumstances and smiled back. “My aunt, too.”
“I wish you’d do that more,” he told her in a wistful voice.
“What?”
“Smile. You used to smile a lot.”
“How do you know?”
“When I saw you in town, you were never without your smile.”
“Maybe I had something to smile about then.”
“I keep telling you that there’s still plenty to smile about.”
Vexed, Meg pressed her lips together.
“What makes this time different, Meg?” he asked in a concerned voice. “What makes this time worse than before? Maybe if you can put it into words, you can get past it.”
He was good at getting to the heart of a matter, she thought. What was the difference? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Elton had beaten her before, had broken bones before. Had abused his husbandly rights before.
“Maybe this was the last straw. Maybe I’m tired of fighting for everything. Maybe I’m just tired.”
“All that is over,” Ace told her. “You never have to go through that again.”
Except in my mind, almost every time I close my eyes.
“How can I be sure it won’t happen again?” she demanded.
“By letting your heart heal and being careful not to rush into anything. By finding a man who will treat you with the love and respect you deserve.”
The idea of deserving love and respect had never entered her mind. “In case you don’t know it, I’m a Ferris,” she told him. “I’ve been talked about all my life, even though I’ve done my best not to be like my mama. How do I merit those things?”
“Everyone deserves them, but before you can expect to receive it from others, you have to learn to love and respect yourself.”
When she only looked at him with a question in her eyes, he said, “It seems to me you’ve let your past mold your present. You’ve allowed your mother’s reputation to impact everything—your decisions, your friends, maybe even the men you socialized with. Why did you choose Elton?”
Meg gave a harsh laugh. “He was very good-looking, and he made me feel special. He bought me things. He made me believe that he really cared and that he would take good care of me.” She laughed again, a bitter sound. “Boy, was I wrong.”
“You may have been wrong about Elton, but you are special, and when you grow up fighting your way through life, it’s easy to be misled. I’ve been there.”
“You have?”
“When I was young, I ran with a pretty rough bunch. Only by the grace of God did I come out of it without turning bad to the bone. Prison gives you three choices. You can let it crush your spirit or harden you until you don’t care what anyone thinks about you. Or you can use it to learn and change.”
“That’s what you chose.”
“Because of my parents. Even during my worst times there, I never forgot what my father always said about rough times. ‘When something bad happens to you, lad, it seems to me you’ve three choices.’” To Meg’s surprise, Ace had adopted a perfect Irish brogue. “‘You can let it define you, destroy you or make you strong.’”
He smiled at her. “Until now, you haven’t let circumstances crush you or harden you. You’ve always come through with your smile and your faith intact. There are few people who could weather what you have and stay close to the Lord.”
Meg thought about that for a few moments. “Your mother told me that you went through a lot growing up because of your mixed heritage. Is that how you got through it? God?”
“My mother talks too much,” he said, but there was tenderness in his eyes as he said it. “I didn’t start accepting who I was until I went to prison. Until then, I spent my life running back and forth between two worlds because I didn’t know where I belonged.
“A man has a lot of time to think in prison, and a lot of time to read the Bible. When I realized how much God loved me and how special I am to Him, I started thinking that I wasn’t just half-white and half-Indian. I was the product of two very different, yet very special, cultures.”
Meg hung on to his every word, fascinated by his thinking.
“I’m the son of Yancy and Nita Allen, but more importantly, I’m a child of God. I realized that none of the rest of it was that important. Most days, that’s enough. Sometimes I still fall into that trap of feeling sorry for myself, but it doesn’t last long.”
Meg recalled feeling the same way. Always before, she’d bounced back.
“I think the most important thing I did was to start dwelling on the similarities of my different backgrounds instead of the differences.”
“Like what?”
“People are people, Meg, no matter what their skin color is or how much money they have or what country they come from. We all breathe and feel joy and pain. We all hate and love and laugh and cry and bleed. And no matter how different we may be on the outside, God loves us all and never leaves us. If there’s any leaving done, we walk away from Him.”
“Didn’t you ever feel like He’d deserted you?”
“Often.”
He glanced away for a moment. “When I was younger I was pretty hostile toward authority. Then I realized how my actions were affecting my parents. They didn’t bring me up to be a brawler and a convict, and I don’t imagine Elton’s parents did, either.”
“Probably not.”
“It’s all about choices, Meg. We make hundreds of choices every day, some of them more important than others. Are we going to be happy or let life get us down? Will we buy that new dress material or wait? Are we going to forgive or hold a grudge for some wrong done to us? It’s up to us.”
“You make it sound so easy,” she said. “Anyone who can do that all the time would have to be perfect.”
Ace smiled. “You’re right, and we aren’t. We all make bad choices, but God wants us to keep trying. I’m not saying it’s easy. I’m saying it’s worth it. One of the hardest things for me is to thank God for the bad things that come my way.”
“How can anyone do that?” she asked, wide-eyed.
“Believe me, it isn’t easy,” he said in a wry tone, “but I truly believe that things, good and bad, happen for a reason, and I know God sifts us, gives us trials, little tests to see how loyal we really are.”
“You’re saying that I chose Elton, and everything he did was to see if my faith was strong enough?”
“I’m saying it’s a possibility. You have to decide what your lessons are.”
“And I’m to forgive the things Elton did to me.”
“You know you are,” he told her. “And you will, in time. The forgiveness is more for you than for him. And I hope that you’ll forgive me for what I did one day, too.”
“I already have,” she said without hesitation and realized as she said it that it was true. “I know that if you hadn’t taken that shot that not only might Colt be dead, but the kids and I. You, too. I know that the bullet going astray was an accident.”
“Thank you for that,” he said. They stared at each other for several awkward seconds. “I should go find that peroxide,” he said, getting to his feet.
“What were you sin
ging?”
“What?” he asked, turning back to her.
“When I saw you on the plateau. What were you singing?”
“It’s the Cherokee morning song. I try to spend time every morning alone with my prayers and my Bible, and I always try to sing something. Sometimes I sing Christian hymns. Sometimes they’re in Irish, sometimes Cherokee. I doubt He cares what language it’s in, as long as it’s praise to Him.”
“No.” Actually, she was impressed with his knowledge, which made her feel only more inadequate. “You’re very smart. With such different backgrounds, how did you become a Christian?”
“Believe it or not, a lot of things overlap.”
“Like what?”
“The Celts and Indians believe that God was a continual presence and that He could be found in nature. They both feel a special closeness with the earth. I think most Christians would agree with that. My father’s people believed that spiritual and creative renewal was obtained through a simulated death and rebirth experience. When the Cherokee celebrate the Great New Moon Ceremony in October on the day they believe the earth was created, they cleanse themselves by immersing in water seven times. They call it ‘going to water.’”
Meg thought of baptism.
He offered her a wry smile. “You probably think I’m crazy.”
“No.”
“I like to study about things that interest me, so I read a lot,” he told her with a shrug. “Once I thought it all through, Christianity seemed the sum total of all those things.”
Meg couldn’t think of anything to say to that.
He started for the door again and turned in the aperture. “Will you do something for me?” he asked.
Her eyes widened. “What?”
“I believe that you were spared and Elton was taken for a reason. Promise me you won’t waste this second chance.”
* * *
Ace finished doctoring Meg’s scrapes and went back outside to take care of the morning chores. His heart was heavy. He had no way of knowing if the things he’d said had any impact on her or not. She hadn’t agreed to think about what he’d said, and she hadn’t commented when he’d asked her not to throw away her chance at a new life. Well, he’d planted the seeds. All he could do now was pray and hope that her heart was still tender enough that they took root.
He was bone-tired. Carrying the hen that had no doubt died of a heart attack during the fox raid, he’d gone through the woods in the dead of night to take the chicken to his mother, who had promised she’d bring dumplings with it the next morning. By the time he’d gotten back to Meg’s, he’d managed to get only a couple hours’ sleep before waking at his usual time.
When Meg had come upon him on the hilltop, he’d just finished praying for them both, something he did every day, several times a day. He prayed for Meg to come out of this latest ordeal healthy and happy and stronger than before. He asked God for help in ridding himself of his inability to get past feeling glad that Elton was dead, and that the Lord would forgive him for taking another life.
Despite the depth of her wounds, Meg was gaining strength each day, not just physically, but emotionally and mentally. It looked as if she had put on a bit of weight now that she was up and about and doing something to whet her appetite, and she’d lost the sickly pallor that spoke of far too much time inside. The empty look in her eyes appeared less and less often as he did everything in his power to goad her into displaying some sentiment.
Anger had been the first reaction he’d sparked, and that was fine. Anything was better than numbness. Unfortunately, today the emotion he’d triggered when he called out to her had been fear. Fright had sent her flying down the steep, crooked hillside, but when he’d carried her to the house, she’d trusted him enough to relax against him. That simple act had triggered a longing inside Ace to hold her close and tell her that he would never let anyone hurt her again.
Forget thinking anything can ever come of what you feel for her.
Even if she did learn to care for him, Ace knew that after all she’d suffered as Elton’s wife, he could never ask her to be his. Despite her mother’s background, Meg was good and kind and decent. From all he knew of her, she was a hard worker, a good friend and a good mother. He didn’t doubt she’d been a good wife. She deserved to be looked up to and respected, and Teddy and Lucy deserved a father who was respected. That wasn’t likely to happen if she married him. He didn’t want her called “the half-breed’s woman” or his children labeled “the Indian’s brats.” Worse, he couldn’t bear to think of her labeled as “the ex-con’s wife.”
The sad truth was that he feared he would never marry and have a family of his own. Meg was the only woman since his wild youth that made his blood sing. She was the only woman who made him want to be better, stronger. She was the only woman whose spirit cried out to him. For her sake, no matter how much he suffered, he had to ignore the call.
* * *
Meg found comfort and a measure of peace in the sameness of her days, each one passing much as the one before. She no longer had to worry about anyone coming along to spoil the little joys she was once again beginning to see along the way, or to wait in fearful trembling for Elton to come home and take out his frustrations and temper on her. There was no more worrying that he’d lose control and hurt one of her babies.
She mended clothes, and she and Ace and Nita did laundry. Then he took it back to town and brought Meg her money. To her surprise, he’d also brought some books for her to read from the new library in town that Caleb and Gabe’s mother, Libby Granville, had opened with the books she’d brought with her from Boston when she’d moved back to town recently.
At first Meg wondered how he knew she needed something to read, but soon realized that since he was keeping an eye out for her, he must have known about her time on the porch in the evenings.
Though she was glad for new reading material, the books he brought home were of a style that held little interest for her. She read them anyway, knowing she needed the practice, but found no real enjoyment in Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth or Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque by Mr. Poe.
Though she had no idea what kind of books Ace might like, she imagined those he brought for her were ones he might enjoy, a suspicion that was confirmed when she caught him reading them at odd free moments.
Once he decided she had enough wood for the winter, he began to work on the many repairs that were needed around the small farm, while she and Nita shared the cooking and cleaning and pieced together a new quilt for Lucy’s bed.
On the days there was no washing or ironing to do, Nita stayed home and Meg helped Ace with some chore or other. Ace cut dead and broken limbs, and Meg used her good arm to help him drag them to the burn pile. Together they set some new posts in the corral and replaced boards. The chicken coop was fox-proofed, and Ace even replaced several cedar shingles.
When they worked together, he explained what he was doing and why, so that she could learn. In response, Meg tried to anticipate what tool he would need next. He never failed to thank her. He was polite, she thought, a word that hadn’t even been in Elton’s vocabulary. She felt more in control for the knowledge Ace was imparting and more confident knowing that he found worth in her contributions, no matter how small.
They often went for an hour or more without speaking. When Elton had grown quiet, it was like the calm before a storm. With Ace, it was a pleasing quiet. There were times when the only sounds were the birdsong, the rustling of the changing leaves and the rapping of the hammer.
Surprisingly, the hours they spent together were not uncomfortable as she’d expected them to be. She began to think of them as a team. They tackled painting the house together. Even before Elton’s death, Meg had been saving up for some whitewash, hoping to spruce up her tired-looking little dwelling. She painted the lower por
tion of the house, and Ace climbed the ladder to reach the high places. They worked together for several days, and when they stepped back to examine their handiwork, Meg was amazed at the difference.
When she wasn’t helping Ace, she spent as much time as possible at her favorite place. October had brought a fair amount of rain and a cold snap that lasted a couple of days. It was a common occurrence, just as it was equally common for them to be swatting mosquitoes into November.
As Meg sat beneath her favorite tree and watched the leaves and the seasons changing, it was inevitable that her thoughts turned to God. Weakened faith or not, He was too ingrained in her past for her to dismiss Him out of hand. She tried to see His plan in the events of the past few months and tried being thankful toward Him for the very things that had brought her to this point in her life, as Ace suggested, but her guilt always kept her from finding a rationale that worked in her mind. She still could make no sense in the things that had happened.
Not surprisingly, thoughts of the past led to thoughts of the future. What would it bring to her and her children? Would she ever have the courage to trust another man with her heart and body? Was there a man out there who was willing to live the words she read in the Bible?
Time would tell. Until then, she vowed to work to regain her strength so that her babies could come home. She would keep trying to find her peace in the world God had created and forgiveness in her heart. And, as Ace suggested, she would try to think of each new day as a second chance.
* * *
Meg sat on the back porch, waiting for Nita to return with their tea. After finishing their other chores, they’d watered the small garden plot Ace insisted on planting in hopes that the turnips and other fall crops would produce before it got too cold.
She and Nita had decided to call it a day while they waited for him to return from town with the laundry they would start the next morning. After they’d washed up at the creek and tidied their hair, laughing and gasping at the coldness of the water, Nita had volunteered to go make a pitcher of the cold tea of which she’d become so fond.
Wolf Creek Widow (Wolf Creek, Arkansas Book 4) Page 10
