My Heart Belongs in the Blue Ridge, page 23
She slammed a palm down on the bed and turned to him, eyes flashing. “Do you think I don’t feel the helplessness of this situation too? I’m grieved to my core.” Her fist pressed into her chest, her voice breaking. “For a good man to be forced to marry me? No girl wants that sort of tragedy. To have my name drug through the rumor mire as a…loose woman?” She waved her palm in the air as she searched for a description. “They’re not gonna let me work in Mrs. Cappy’s anymore with that sort of reputation, I bet.” Her gaze widened, her jaw dropping wide with a gasp. “And college?”
The realization in her eyes knifed through him with a fresh sting.
She shook her head, new tears blurring the gold in her eyes. “There’s no college for me now.”
Oh, the pain! Her expression, so alive, so transparent, broke him. This was wrong! Devastating. He’d ruined her future, her dreams, all from one misfired snowball that ended in this life-altering avalanche. How would he ever make this up to her? How could she ever forgive him? He surged to a stand. “I need air.” Without another word, eyes searing with unfamiliar tears, Jonathan grabbed his coat on a hook by the door and left.
Let Sam McAdams and his men watch him lose control of his emotions, but the last thing Laurel needed was another opportunity to see him fail.
Laurel forced breaths in and out as tears heated her vision. Her thoughts halted and spun, unable to find a landing space. The walls closed in. She pushed herself up, grappling for furniture as a crutch to free her from the small room, blinking as weakness tempted to press her to the floor. Halfway through the sitting room to the kitchen, she collapsed, burying her face into the rug in front of the fire. What was God doing? Didn’t He love her dreams at all? Everything was lost! First her money for college and now college itself.
What good were hopes and dreams if they were stripped away so easily? Why even have them a’tall? Spurned by frustration, she pulled herself up by the wingback, held to the doorframe of the kitchen, and finally collapsed in a wooden ladder-back by the tiny kitchen table. A loaf of store-bought bread waited, half-eaten. Her stomach groaned. She peeled off a piece and raised it to her lips, only to let it fall back to the table. It wasn’t as if she was selfishly dreaming. She wanted to help her entire mountain. Now…now, as a wife, her future stared back at her, the course as certain as the morning light. Cooking, cleaning, babies. Hard work. Not that any of those things were bad. No, they were blessings in their own way and time, but she’d longed for more. Hadn’t God carved this longing to teach deep within her?
“Why, Lord? Why?”
The tears spilled over then, dripping down her cheeks. A cloth waited on the counter nearby. She took it in hand, the scent of lye hitting her nostrils. With a fury born from sorrow, she scrubbed the small table then moved to the pine floor. Work. Mindless work. She couldn’t give in to the sorrow or the emptiness steeling through her in a way she’d never encountered before. Hopelessness.
Jonathan marched through the snow, faster and faster, blindly forcing one foot in front of another. He felt eyes watching from somewhere in the woods, Sam’s men, but it didn’t matter. He needed to walk, breathe, attempt to understand this broken page of his life.
The air, crisp from the new-fallen snow, cooled the inner heat and cleared his head. He slowed his pace and drew in a deep breath of the clean air. A startling blue sky contrasted against the wintery world around him, distracting him for the faintest second from the horrible reality of the last half hour. Though the snow had stopped, flakes dropped from the trees as he passed by, flittering down with soft, fragile elegance. His eyes stung. His lungs pressed with a need to scream at someone for the injustice of what happened. Two lives impacted forever.
And it had been his fault. His ridiculous actions. All of it. He’d crippled her dreams. How could she ever see him as a friend again, let alone her husband?
The trees fell away as a stage curtain, and he found himself on a rocky outcropping—the same ledge he’d stood on with Laurel the first night he’d arrived in Maple Springs. The view stretched to the horizon in a powdery white patchwork of cloud and snow, with random peeks of an indigo sky, a stark contrast to the clear blue.
The vastness, which always captured him at such a view, suddenly pulled a snarl instead. If God heard—if God saw, then…
“Why?” he called into the empty horizon. His voice echoed back, edged with blame. If he’d been the only one impacted by such a catastrophe, it wouldn’t have made so much of a difference, but the fact this situation wounded Laurel ripped through him with a dozen accusations toward the One who controlled it all.
“Don’t You care?” He screamed again, and the word care…care came back.
He scoffed. Where was the care right now, especially for Laurel? If God loved her, why did He allow this? What did He plan to do with these shattered dreams?
“You let this happen. How can You love her?”
Love her…love her…
The words returned almost as a question. Yes, he loved her. He’d turn back time, if possible, to make amends for the pain he’d caused. Do anything. How could he make her happy with all the loss? The pain?
Love her…love her… still echoed in the valley below.
“There’s too much hurt. Love can’t be enough.”
And the simple challenge echoed back. Enough…enough.
Jonathan pushed open the door, his chest weary from the internal battle. He’d walked much longer than he’d planned, half praying, half begging for some answers.
The quiet of the house ushered his own hushed entry. A low fire lit the room, scaring back any afternoon shadows. He moved with quiet steps to the bedroom, but Laurel wasn’t there. He froze, his mind reeling through possibilities. Where could she have gone?
He rushed into the sitting room again, scanning the chairs for any evidence. She couldn’t have gotten far. Besides the guards keeping watch, her wound wouldn’t have allowed it.
The scent of lye drew him toward the back of the house. The kitchen floor shone with the handiwork of a good cleaning, the countertops were tidied, and over at the small table in the corner, Laurel sat with her head resting on her arm…asleep.
How had she managed to garner enough strength? The loaf of bread lay almost finished next to her. He sighed. At least she’d eaten something.
He stepped closer, his shoulders slumping with the weight of the day. Tears clung to the tips of her eyelashes, evidence of the same ragged disappointment he’d struggled with for the past few hours alone in the forest. Love her…love her. The whisper echoed back to his mind.
A challenge.
A calling.
Could that really be enough to repair the wounds he’d caused?
One golden curl fell from her braid, slipping against her cheek and over one eye. With the gentlest of movements, Jonathan took the piece between his fingers and tucked it back into the masses of her hair. Silky. Soft. He hadn’t imagined how soft it would feel.
His chest constricted with another pang mixed with…tenderness? She’d worked hard and probably wept even harder. This strong, brave girl, weeping? A groan resurrected from the core of his own hurt.
With a careful touch, he slipped his arms beneath her, but she didn’t stir, only tipped her head until it settled against his shoulder. The same honeysuckle scent that always accompanied her presence swelled around him with a stronger hold. Her palm rested haphazardly against his chest, and something fierce surged to life within him.
A protectiveness. Bright and alive as a fanned flame. He couldn’t explain it and certainly didn’t understand it, but somehow the knowledge tempered the residual fury from this upturned world.
Even after her loss of blood and the emotional assault of her father’s forceful decision, she’d cleaned his kitchen, probably with as many tears as water, and in her weakened state, even his presence didn’t wake her.
He pressed his lips against her hair, breathing in the sweet scent, closing his eyes to pray for peace for both of them. He couldn’t change the details of the past, but he could reshape the future.
He carried her to the bed, tucking the autumn quilt around her.
Whatever it took, he’d find a way to bring her dreams back to life.
By the second day after their makeshift wedding, Laurel was able to walk unassisted, though not for long and with a decided limp. She found some satisfaction in waking up, dressing herself, and getting into the kitchen without disturbing Jonathan, who slept on the couch bed in the main room. The poor man. He was too long for that couch. And his body curled in some contorted way in an attempt to get comfortable. She’d fit better on that couch than he would. And she’d let him know that tonight.
Her chest ached, like her heart was sore, lonely. Two days, and they’d barely spoken to each other. Neither had said anything harsh or mean. Just lots of quiet. Lots of painful quiet filled with so many unsaid things, so many lost conversations. She stood in the doorway of the kitchen watching him sleep. Having poured out her grief through prayer and anger and more prayer and more anger, she felt her loss settle into a familiarity around her heart, a weary acceptance of dying dreams. But she grieved for something else too. Had she lost the sweet friendship between the two of them when they’d exchanged vows? The very thought seemed so wrong. Could he still be her friend when his entire future had been altered, and by her father’s own hand?
Her mama had sent comfort in the only way she could. The morning after the wedding, she’d left a crate on the front porch filled with jams, canned goods, flour, sugar, and her own wonderful concoction of honeysuckle water. The perfumed water recipe came all the way from Laurel’s great-granny, who’d worked in a flower shop in the Old World. The motto passed to each generation of girls—there’s no reason why a lady couldn’t smell nice. God’s perfume makers filled the earth.
Inside the crate, her mama left something extra special—an iron skillet passed down from her granny Lilabeth. Laurel knew this pan. Her mother’s favorite. And she knew the phrase scratched on the bottom in an attempt to encourage or remind.
“God is bigger.”
She pinched her eyes closed and pushed the grief back. Hardships happened to everyone. Some change the day, others change the future. Her vision blurred, but she stilled the onslaught of tears. Help me trust. Help me trust beyond my broken heart.
With quick work, she quietly cleaned up the dishes from the night before, almost smiling at Jonathan’s attempt to make cobbler. Burnt on one side and not done on the other. Well, at least now, as his wife, she could keep him fed with fully cooked meals.
After sitting a spell, she started frying some bacon, the delicious and familiar aroma filling the house, bringing a little of home with it. She looked through the cabinets and found the ingredients for biscuits, smiling again at the thought of his dozens of failed attempts to make the perfect biscuit.
He was such a good man. How could God allow the situation to ruin his life? There was no happy ending for this choice, was there? They both lost. And how could she ever make up the loss to him?
“I see you’re moving around better.” He stood in the doorway, scratching his head and looking around the kitchen with a grimace. “I’m sorry I didn’t clean up last night. I was so tired and then forgot.”
“You don’t have to apologize. These are things I can do now that I’m back on my feet.”
He didn’t respond, and she swallowed back a sudden urge to cry again. Law, she’d cried more tears in the past two days than she’d cried since Kizzie disappeared.
She went back to her work on breakfast, and the rigid silence swelled to an almost unbearable volume. She hated it, and even banged around a few things in the kitchen to make some noise. But the silence continued, with only the sound of Jonathan walking here or there from one room to the next.
Each second the silence grew, increasing a longing she didn’t quite understand. Would this be life? Silence? Where had their conversations gone? She bit back the sadness and slammed a plate down on the counter. She’d choose anger over crying any day.
He reentered the kitchen, book in hand. Quiet. But she felt his gaze on her. Talk, Jonathan. Please don’t leave me in this silence alone.
He dropped his attention back to the book, and she bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from screaming at him. She couldn’t recall her mama ever screaming at her daddy. With a wobble and gritted teeth, she carried the plate of biscuits to the table and placed them down a little harder than necessary.
His gaze shot to hers.
“I can’t stand this quiet between us.”
He lowered the book slowly, refusing to break their eye contact. “Neither can I, but I…I didn’t know what to say. I caused this, Laurel.” Grief laced those golden eyes. “Me.”
She dropped into the seat across from him. “I’m not blaming you. Neither one of us wished for this. We both lost our freedom and dreams, so it hurts. It hurts somethin’ awful.” She pressed her palm into her chest. “But it’ll hurt a whole lot worse if we lose our friendship too.”
His face funneled through so many expressions, she lost count, but it finally paused on understanding—a sad sort of understanding. Probably a whole lot like what she felt on the inside.
“You’re right. That would be much worse.”
For the first time since this tragedy occurred, she smiled. A real smile. One that felt slow and difficult because it meant more than a smile had meant before. “I don’t see why getting married should end our friendship, do you?”
He shook his head, his own smile softening the pain in his eyes. “I’d always hoped marriage would be a lifelong friendship.”
She studied him and pushed up from the table to retrieve the rest of breakfast. “That’s a nice notion, for sure.” After placing the jam beside the biscuits, she returned to her seat. “We got a pretty good start at a friendship, I think. Don’t you?”
“I do.” He nodded. “This lifelong friendship certainly works well for me in one particular way.”
“What’s that?”
He gestured toward the table. “Biscuits with you here are decidedly more edible than when you are not.”
And her grin loosed. There was the Jonathan Taylor she knew.
The next few days, Jonathan found various items left on their porch each morning. Gifts, Laurel told him. For their wedding. So evidently, news had spread to the uttermost reaches of Maple Springs, because the Spencers, Morgans, Carters, even Norie Smith, left various items in celebration. He and Laurel had found two routines within the first week of their marriage. Reading from the Bible together at breakfast, and then reading their separate novels at night by the fire.
Their close proximity in the small house heightened every sense. He listened for her to settle in the bed at night. Grinned at her habit of whistling while she cooked. Even the simple way she twirled the end of her braid when she read by the evening fire became a fascinating study.
She found the fact that he helped her wash up laughable. No one in her world expected a man to do “woman’s work,” but he liked the opportunity to be near her, and as the week went on they found their banter again.
Jonathan thought he’d see his uncle by Sunday, but he never showed, sending a message that the flu epidemic throughout the mountain communities was much worse than anyone anticipated.
“The snow’s melted enough that you reckon you’ll have school tomorrow?” Laurel asked, clearing the table from their supper. She’d cooked something simple. Corn pone, side meat, and green beans. No complaints from him.
“I hope so.” He carried their plates to the wash bin.
“Oh, I’m sure the young’uns will all be curious about your bein’ a married man now.”
With a few hand pumps, water flowed from the sink faucet, and Laurel shook her head. “I don’t know how on this earth I’m gonna ever get used to having pumped water on the inside of the house. It’s a wonder.”
“You’ll be the envy of every mountain wife.” He chuckled, thankful that one thing in life made the predicament easier. He took a dish towel and began drying the few dishes as she finished them. “And since we’re properly married…I think you ought to see if you can keep your job at the store.”
She stopped scrubbing on a plate and looked over at him, her brow crinkled. “Why? I’ll have work to do around here and—”
“I can help with the work around here, but I don’t want you to give up on college, Laurel.”
She stood so close, her hands still in the bubbly water, her eyes fastened on his, and the same bond he’d always felt with her twisted more securely.
“Married women don’t go to college.” The tiniest bit of hope tinged her whisper. Their shoulders brushed together. She was so close.
He pushed a damp strand of hair from her cheek, those eyes softening with wonder and curiosity. “You can become one of the first.”
She kept staring, face upturned, lips parted. What would she do if he kissed her?
He watched her face for guidance, but she didn’t move, didn’t back away. With careful deliberation, he lowered his lips to hers for the gentlest of kisses. Her lips proved as soft as he’d imagined, an untouched delicacy.
The kiss ended much too quickly, but he needed to gauge her response. When he pulled back, she remained unmoving, eyes closed, hands in the pot of water. With a tip of her smile, her gaze fluttered to his. “That was…the sweetest thing.”
He’d heard there could be far sweeter, but she wasn’t prepared for that yet, he didn’t think. “Indeed, it was.”
She still stared at him, almost dazed. “I reckon I’d do about anything for you with such sweetness as that.” Her grin crooked in its impish way. “Even work for Mrs. Cappy.”
“I think you should work for Mrs. Cappy.” He tipped her chin up and took another kiss; this time, her lips coaxed him to linger a little longer.
