Nita Allen knew that the sweet dreams of future happiness could hide the bitter taste of the past and the present, at least for a while. She watched Meg disappear into the shadow of the forest with a feeling of satisfaction in her heart. It seemed that God was answering her prayers for Meg to once again be whole in body, mind and spirit.
* * *
Meg followed the path through the woods to her favorite spot near the creek. It was cooler in the deepening shadows, and she was glad for the shawl Nita had insisted she drape over her shoulders. Nita Allen was a kind woman, and more and more, Meg realized that despite his past, Ace was a good man.
There were a lot of wonderful people in her world, she thought, recalling the generosity of the women who had visited her earlier. Her thoughts turned to Libby Granville’s encouraging words. She knew the older woman meant well, but even though their pasts had many parallels, Libby’s story was far different from Meg’s. Libby might have had an abusive husband, but she had married very well the second time. Meg didn’t see any wealthy or kind man in her future to make her life easier.
As soon as the thoughts crossed her mind, shame pushed them aside. It was unlike her to begrudge another person happiness or good turn of events. Despite the hurt Elton had done to her, she was up and walking around. Lucas Gentry had beaten Sam Granville so badly he’d been left an invalid, confined to a wheelchair. He could easily have become hateful and cynical, but by all accounts, he hadn’t.
Don’t forget that you still have your babies, Meg. Something else to be thankful for. Libby had gained her freedom from Lucas, but only at the expense of losing her two boys to Lucas, who had more power and money. That cold, hard truth brought Meg’s comparisons to a halt. Libby Gentry Granville had been forced to leave her sons with a man who had shown them no love. But for the grace of God and the love of two amazing women, both Caleb and Gabe might have grown up as embittered and mean-spirited as their father.
Meg shuddered and pulled the shawl more closely around her. She was thankful that Lucy and Teddy had escaped physical harm. Hopefully, with loving care and prayer, they would forget the bad things they’d seen and heard during their short lives. That couldn’t be said for Caleb and Gabe or even Libby and Sam. They would never forget, yet they had chosen to pick up the fragments of their broken lives and piece together new ones.
And so, here she was. She had been given a second chance. She could wallow in the past and let Elton win by hiding away from life and love, or she could take a page from the Gentry family’s book and look for the potential good that might spring up from the trials she’d suffered.
It was up to her.
Chapter Nine
Meg smelled the wood smoke before she rounded the head-high stand of sumac, whose crimson leaves rivaled the red of her knitted wrap. She stopped at the sight before her.
Ace had built a small fire and was sitting with his forearms draped over his upraised knees. He must have sensed her presence because he glanced over his shoulder with a sharp jerk of his head. In profile, he was the image of hidden power and fierce beauty. She realized that he must have bathed in the chilly waters of the creek, because his wet hair clung to his bare shoulders and back.
He reached for the shirt lying next to him, stood, raised it and drew it over his head, but not before she’d seen the scars covering his back. She was hardly aware that he’d turned to face her.
He’s been beaten in prison, she thought. How many times had they whipped him? How often? How many lashes had they inflicted? Had anyone tended his bleeding back, or had they just let him suffer?
Long-suppressed emotions surged through her, mercilessly dragging out the memories of her last encounter with Elton. Fresh insights and raw feelings burst through the barrier of numbness she’d erected, filling her with anguish.
The aching sorrow she felt was not for her own suffering, but for a young man who’d grown up in two worlds and felt he belonged to neither. She felt regret for the time he’d spent behind bars and joy and thankfulness that he’d overcome it all.
The painful prickles of emotion were not unlike those she felt when feeling returned to a hand or foot that had fallen asleep. She was so caught up in the surge of emotions that she was unaware of the sob that escaped her throat and the tears running down her cheeks.
For long seconds, he stood there just looking at her, and then he came nearer, stopping mere inches from her. Without a word, he tipped her face upward. To her astonishment, she saw that his cheeks were wet with tears, too. Why was he crying?
“Shh.”
He cupped her face in his big hands, and his thumbs brushed the tears from her cheeks with a gentleness she’d never before experienced. She mimicked him, reaching up to take his face between her hands and brushing aside the moisture on his cheeks.
Slowly, so slowly that she wasn’t sure he was moving at all, he lowered his head. He was going to kiss her. A renegade memory of Elton’s brutal kisses sneaked into her mind. Ace must have felt her stiffen, because he stopped and started to draw away.
You have no reason to be frightened of me. Ever.
The memory of those words and the tenderness she saw in his eyes quieted her fear. She had grown to dread her husband’s touch and despise his kisses, but this man was not Elton, and he was nothing like Elton.
With that realization, the threat and fear vanished, and the only thing she felt was inevitability and anticipation. A quiver of pleasure she’d never expected to experience again shivered through her. Still holding his face in her palms, she raised herself on tiptoe to meet him halfway and felt the sweetness of his breath against her lips.
Then, to her surprise, Ace stepped back, dropping his hands to his sides and leaving her feeling abandoned. Brazen. Embarrassed.
She lowered her arms and for a moment they stood staring at each other, both breathing heavily. Why had he stopped? It was impossible to know; he’d spent too many years perfecting that expression of cool stoicism.
“I’m sorry. That was totally inappropriate under the circumstances. I hope you’ll forgive me.”
Disappointment washed through her, and the breath she’d been holding lodged in her throat. The stilted apology sounded like something Win Granville might say. She stifled a sudden fit of nervous, ill-timed giggles and looked up at Ace, wondering what she was supposed to forgive. Nothing had happened, and even if it had, she’d have been as much to blame as he.
“There’s nothing to forgive,” she said, humiliation making her voice a mere thread of sound.
Swiping at the lingering moisture on her cheeks, then dabbing her fingers on her skirt, Meg squared her shoulders, turned and retraced her steps down the path toward the house. She was halfway back to the cabin when she realized that the tears had started all over again.
* * *
He had what he’d wanted. Meg had cried, though she hadn’t wept for herself or the things she’d suffered at Elton’s hands. Instead, she’d spilled tears for a man she hardly knew. Besides his parents, Ace didn’t think anyone had cried for him before.
When he’d seen the moisture streaming down her cheeks and realized the tears were for him, he’d been both humbled and overjoyed. He prayed that the protective walls she’d built around her heart had finally crumbled and she was feeling once more. If so, the healing would inevitably follow.
As happy as that made him, Ace was furious with himself for almost kissing her. But she’d looked so beautiful as she’d stood staring up at him with her heart laid bare and tears flooding her eyes.
Fortunately, he’d realized at the last possible moment that his timing was all wrong. She was a recent widow. She was not in a position to welcome the advances of any man. He was surprised that she wasn’t angry at him for taking advantage of her, and even more surprised that she hadn’t run back to the house screaming. Instead, she was cool and controlled, a sid
e of her he’d never seen before.
He sighed. Now what? Would she revert back to her old ways and shut herself off from him? He hoped not. He’d worked too hard to gain her trust.
He prayed. For her and him, and for God to provide a path of forgiveness and peace for them both. As hopeless as his loving her was, Ace knew that whatever happened between them in the future, Meg Thomerson was forever imprinted in his mind, his heart and his soul.
* * *
When Meg woke the next morning, she heard Nita bustling around in the kitchen. Wide-eyed, she sat bolt upright in bed, knowing she’d overslept after lying awake for hours. She’d been braiding her hair for the night when she thought of Ace telling her that he was sorry, that the kiss had been “totally inappropriate under the circumstances.”
Womanlike, she had latched on to the words. Had he been trying to tell her that he was sorry because it was too soon after Elton’s death, or had he drawn away out of disgust that she could even think of kissing another man so soon after losing her husband? Was he thinking that she was indeed Georgie Ferris’s daughter, or could he possibly be feeling guilt for almost kissing her so soon after her husband’s death, a death he was responsible for?
Meg knew that if anyone should feel guilty about that near kiss with Elton barely cold in the ground, it was she. In truth, she didn’t feel one iota of remorse. Any feelings she’d once had for him had been over long before a stray bullet took his life.
For the first time since it happened, she took out her memories of that terrible day and looked at them with an objective eye, trying to imagine how it had impacted not just her, but everyone involved.
She thought long and hard about how the sheriff and his deputy had changed because of it. Colt had been jolted from his doubts and realized that he needed to make his peace with God for blaming Him for his wife’s death so many years ago. Dan Mercer had come out of the ordeal and devoted himself to becoming the best man he could be.
And how had it affected Ace, the main player in the tragedy? Until recently, she’d thought of him as the man who’d shot her husband. She didn’t blame him, not when there was no doubt that what he’d done was necessary to save lives. The fact was that God had chosen to spare Colt, as well as her and her children, through Ace. Nevertheless, she realized that the burden he carried on his broad shoulders was a heavy one to bear, even though the true cause of Elton’s death was the violent life he’d chosen.
For the very first time since that day, Meg felt sorry for him. Not for her loss, but because it finally hit her that Elton was separated from God by the sins he committed. He’d never expressed regret or any desire to repent and change the course of his life, which he’d proved right up to the last moments of his life, when he had tried to kill both Colt and Ace.
On the other hand, she’d learned enough about Ace to know that day was a burden on his heart. Not only did he feel guilt, but he also felt responsible for the situation in which Meg now found herself, which was one reason he’d come to help during her recuperation.
What he didn’t know was that his aid had not only saved her business, but his actions the past weeks had also helped banish her fears and gone a long way toward teaching her to trust. His work ethic and respectful manner, his patience and the peace that seemed to radiate from him like the warm rays of the sun, had shown her that not all men were like her late husband. Some men were good and kind and worthy of a woman’s love.
She drew in a sharp breath.
Love. Was it possible? No! Though she’d wanted him to kiss her and was disappointed when he hadn’t didn’t mean that she loved him. She’d been treated too badly to consider falling in love with another man so soon after Elton’s death. Ace was right. It was totally inappropriate.
You don’t consider falling in love, Meg. It just happens. She drew a shallow breath and tried to convince herself that those few moments were out of time. They were both hurting and needed the emotional warmth and closeness of another person. Surely that wasn’t love.
She’d fallen asleep near dawn with no answers, Now, in the light of day, she was still afraid to look too closely at what had happened and what it could possibly mean. Meg readied herself for the day and went to see if she could help Nita with the morning meal.
“Good morning,” the older woman said, pouring a cup of fresh coffee into a mug and handing it to Meg. “Did you sleep well?”
Meg felt a blush creep up over her face. “After I finally went to sleep, yes. You should have awakened me.”
“For what?” Nita smiled. “You and Ace already have this little farm looking like a showplace.”
Ace. Where was he? She wanted to ask but held her tongue. “Hardly that.”
Nita looked at her with raised eyebrows. “Have you really stopped and looked at what the two of you have done, or have you been so busy working that you haven’t noticed the results?”
“The latter, I guess,” Meg confessed, taking a sip of the fragrant brew.
“Well, sometime today, walk up the lane a ways and look back. When I came this morning, I thought I’d made a wrong turn. Everything looked so nice I wondered if I was at the right house!”
The notion that things looked that good was so outlandish that Meg laughed. She sobered suddenly. When had she last found anything to laugh about? Heaven knew there’d been little enough to find funny in the past.
All that is over now.
Yes. Over. Teddy and Lucy would soon be home and she promised herself that she would see to it that their lives were filled with fun and laughter, even if the joy was built around simple things.
Almost as if she could read her mind, Nita said, “I know you must be excited about the children coming home soon.”
“Yes,” Meg said, another smile blooming on her face. “I can hardly wait. I’ve missed them so.”
“I know you have,” Nita said in a gentle voice. “It will take time, Meg, but things will work out, and you and your children will be just fine.”
Would they? Or would there just be more talk and speculation? Did she know and trust Nita Allen well enough to share those fears? Nita would not judge her, she knew. Just as she knew that any advice she gave would be rock-solid.
Meg took a breath to work up her nerve and plunged. “I’m worried, Mrs. Allen.”
“About what?”
“The gossip. I imagine everyone in town is talking about me and saying I should have left Elton long ago and maybe this wouldn’t have happened, but things are more complicated than just packing up and leaving.”
Nita waited, giving Meg a chance to speak what was in her heart.
“Elton wasn’t a very nice man,” she offered, confirming what was common knowledge. “I’m sure everyone in town knew that, and I’m sure they talked about him and me, even though I tried not to give them any reason to.”
Nita only nodded.
“Even though we had to marry, Aunt Serena taught me well about the sanctity of marriage, and I took my vows seriously. For a long time, even after things got bad, I tried to love him as best I could, and then one day that love was just gone. I prayed for him and me, but nothing changed. He blamed me for every bad thing that ever happened to him and for every wrong thing he’d ever done.”
Nita looked as if she wanted to say something, but Meg held up a restraining hand as the words seemed to spew from her very soul.
“He said I shouldn’t be so mouthy. Maybe I was. I don’t know, but I never gave anyone in town a reason to speak ill of me.”
“I know that.”
“He told me I should be a better wife and that I needed to stretch the little dab of money he gave me further than I did, but it was never enough.”
She shuddered at the vivid rush of memories and swiped at the tears burning her eyes. “I tried to take care of what I had, and even though my kids’ clo
thes were hand-me-downs or made from feed sacks, they were always starched and ironed and mended, and we never went to town unless they were bathed and their hair was combed.”
She heaved a deep sigh. “I thought that if I did something to help make ends meet, he’d be glad. So I started the laundry business. You know what hard work it is. Elton started complaining that I’d let myself go and looked twice my age. He’d ask me how I expected him to care for me when it was plain that I didn’t care about myself.”
She met Nita’s concerned gaze boldly, as if daring her to comment on what she was about to say.
“I prayed that I could find the courage to pack up my babies and leave him, but when I threatened it, he said he’d track me down and drag me back, so I stayed. I went to church services when I could, but after a while, he just wore down my hope and my faith like water dripping on a stone.”
Nita regarded her with a solemn expression.
“When I became a Christian, Brother McAdams assured me that God had forgiven all of my sins, but sometimes—” she gulped back a huge sob “—sometimes I wonder if He might still be holding the things I did with Elton before our marriage against me.”
“No, Meg,” Nita assured her in a soft voice. “I can promise you He doesn’t.”
“Then I don’t understand!” she cried. “I’ve tried living right, and I’ve tried prayer, but it never changed anything. My life has just gone from one bad thing to another. Look where I am now. Look at me!” She met her new friend’s steady gaze. “What must everyone be saying about me now?”
Nita laid aside the two-pronged fork she was using to turn the bacon and reached out to place a small hand over Meg’s. “I’ve heard what they say of you, Meg. There are more people in Wolf Creek who know the truth than not, and I don’t know a single soul who blames you for your husband’s wrongdoings—or your mother’s, for that matter. Most of them admire you for the way you’ve conducted yourself these past years.”
Wolf Creek Widow (Wolf Creek, Arkansas Book 4) Page 12
