Hidden Places (31 page)

That kiss was like the touch of a match to fuel oil. Gabe’s other arm came around me as he crushed me to himself, and what began as a gentle kiss quickly blazed with intensity. My arms encircled him, clung to him, and I returned his kiss with a passion I’d never experienced before. The feelings that seared through me frightened me, the strength of them terrified me. I felt safe in his arms, protected, even as all the barriers I’d built to protect myself turned to ashes. I was in love with Gabe, plain and simple.

I don’t know what might have become of us if it hadn’t been for Winky. Aunt Batty must have let him out for his morning run, and he sneaked up on Gabe and me, sat down at our feet, and barked. The unexpected sound of it made me jump right out of Gabe’s arms. Winky was just a silly, half-blind dog, and all Gabe and I had done was kiss, but I felt as though I’d been caught by my daddy, doing something I shouldn’t do. I nearly tripped over one of the oil containers as I quickly backed away from Gabe. He reached out to steady me but I twisted away from his dangerous touch. Once burnt, twice shy, as Aunt Peanut used to say. I started to run.

‘‘Eliza, wait!’’

‘‘No. Stay away from me.’’

‘‘But why?’’

I whirled around to face him and I began trembling from head to foot as I realized the truth. ‘‘Because I don’t even know who you are.’’

Gabe couldn’t have looked more stunned if I had whacked him with a two-by-four. I turned and hurried away before he had time to recover, but I could have sworn I heard him mumble, ‘‘Neither do I....’’

After that morning I was afraid to get near Gabe again. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust him; the truth was, I didn’t trust myself. I avoided being alone with him, and when all else failed and I had to work beside him, I kept Winky between us as a reminder. Except for operating the spray rig, most of the jobs like running the corn planter up and down the rows, could be done by one of us alone. I made sure we stayed apart.

Between disking and dragging and spraying, I soon memorized every square inch of the orchard. I got in the habit of using the big work horses instead of the tractor in order to save gasoline, and as time passed, I grew to enjoy their quiet company. They reminded me of the beautiful Percheron horses I’d known so well as a child.

As spring inched toward summer and the apple blossoms faded and died, a gradual change took place in me until one morning, as I stood in the middle of the orchard, I realized that these weren’t Frank Wyatt’s trees anymore—they were mine. Mine! I had trimmed them and fertilized them and babied them through frost and protected them from insects. I had fallen in love with my land and I didn’t care whose name appeared on the deed—I could no more hand the orchard over to Matthew Wyatt without a fight than I could hand over Jimmy or Luke or Becky Jean.

My lawyer had still heard nothing about Matthew, so I didn’t have to hand over the orchard just yet, but as time went on, it seemed as though I was handing over my children to Gabe Harper. It worried me to death. Gabe had won Becky’s heart by making the swing, and now he spent a good deal of his spare time teaching Jimmy and Luke all sorts of things, like how to play mumblety-peg with a pocket knife. But when Jimmy came into the kitchen one afternoon waving his daddy’s fishing pole, it was the last straw.

‘‘Mama! Look what we found in the tool shed! Mr. Harper said he’ll take us fishing this Saturday like Dad used to do.’’

I grabbed the pole from Jimmy’s hand and stormed outside to find Gabe. He was cleaning out the shed and hanging all the tools on nails the way Frank Wyatt used to do. Gabe gaped in surprise when I threw the fishing pole at his feet.

‘‘Here! Put this thing back where you found it and don’t you dare take my sons fishing!’’

He looked bewildered as he bent to pick it up. ‘‘Why not?’’

Because they’ll fall in love with you and you’ll break their hearts when you leave us,
my heart screamed, but I couldn’t say the words out loud.

‘‘Because you never should have promised to take them fishing in the first place,’’ I said instead. ‘‘You’re not their father!’’

‘‘I know I’m not!’’ His knuckles turned so white as he gripped the fishing rod I was sure he would snap it in half. He took a step toward me. ‘‘Jimmy was helping me clean up in here and he found the pole. He asked me if I’d ever gone fishing when I was a kid, and when I said that I had, he begged me to take him. How could I tell him no, Eliza? How?’’

I didn’t answer. Gabe and I stared at each other for a long moment, then he finally said, ‘‘If you don’t want me to take them fishing, then I won’t. But you’ll have to be the one to break the news to them, because I can’t do it.’’

My eyes filled with tears. I was so angry I was shaking. ‘‘Don’t you dare hurt my kids, Gabe Harper! Life has hurt them badly enough already!’’

He threw down the pole and seized my shoulders. His face was angry, his grip hard, but when he spoke his voice was soft. ‘‘If I ever hurt any of you, I promise that it won’t be intentional. It’ll be because...because it’s out of my control.’’ Then he released me and stalked out of the shed.

Friday night after dark, Gabe and the boys dug in the garden for night crawlers, collecting them in an old tin can. Early Saturday morning the three of them drove the truck down to the river to go fishing. Jimmy and Luke each caught a couple of fish and they were in seventh heaven. Aunt Batty cleaned them and cooked them for dinner. But I had no appetite at all.

The fishing trip was just the beginning as they spent more and more time together. The boys begged Gabe to help them practice hitting and catching a ball so they wouldn’t be the last ones to be picked for the baseball teams at school. On a lazy Sunday afternoon, Gabe and Aunt Batty set up bases under the clotheslines for a game of stickball. Luke held the bat, Gabe pitched, and Jimmy, Becky, and Aunt Batty covered the three bases. I stood at the kitchen door, watching.

‘‘Eliza, come on out here and catch for us,’’ Gabe called to me from the pitcher’s mound. ‘‘We need you.’’

‘‘I...Idon’t know how. I’ve never played baseball.’’

‘‘You’ve never played baseball?’’ Gabe said, scratching his head. ‘‘What kind of a half-baked school did you go to?’’

If he only knew
, I thought.

‘‘Come on, Mom,’’ Jimmy begged. ‘‘We need you to be our catcher.’’

‘‘No...Ireally can’t.’’

In just a few swift strides Gabe crossed the backyard and took me by the arm, pulling me into the game before I could protest further. ‘‘All you have to do is stand here behind home plate and catch the ball if Luke misses it. But Luke isn’t going to miss it, are you, buddy? Just keep your eye on the ball and swing the bat like I showed you.’’

They quickly drew me into the fun and laughter. Luke concentrated so hard as he waited for Gabe to throw the ball that the tip of his tongue stuck out just like Winky’s. But the look of pure joy on Luke’s face when he finally hit one clear over Gabe’s head brought tears to my eyes. Aunt Batty jumped up and down cheering as it sailed past her. Winky waddled around the outfield barking and looking bewildered as he tried to find it. Becky hugged her brother as he passed her at first base.

We were a family, just like the one I used to dream about when I was a kid—except that we weren’t a family. Gabe wasn’t the daddy and Aunt Batty would eventually go home, and I would be abandoned once more. I couldn’t understand why God kept taunting me, giving me what I longed for, then snatching it all away again. My mama was right—love was just like cotton candy. It disappeared the moment you got a taste of it in your mouth.

While the others cheered and patted Luke on the back, I hurried into the house to hide my tears. I was sitting at the kitchen table with my hands over my face when I heard the screen door open and close behind me.

‘‘Eliza?’’ Gabe said softly. ‘‘Are you all right?’’ He rested his hand on my shoulder but when he felt me tense up he quickly removed it again. I wiped my eyes with the heels of my hands.

‘‘Yes...I’m fine.’’

‘‘I hope I didn’t do something to upset you.’’

‘‘It isn’t you, Gabe. I’ll be okay.’’

He pulled out the kitchen chair next to mine and sat down, resting his arms on the table. ‘‘I worry, sometimes, that doing things together like this brings back too many memories...That it makes you miss Sam.’’

I looked up at him in surprise. ‘‘No, that’s not it at all. Sam never had a chance to do things like this with me and the kids. It’s just that—’’ I stopped, shaking my head. ‘‘Nevermind.’’

‘‘Eliza, you can talk to me when something’s bothering you. You can trust me—’’

‘‘Can I really?’’ I said angrily. ‘‘And then you’ll return that trust and share all your secrets with me?’’

Gabe stared at me and I knew he was waging an internal battle. I could see it in his eyes. There was pain in them and a loss that was crushing him. Sam had a similar look in his eyes when I first met him. But Gabe seemed to have even more anguish than Sam stuffed deep inside him. I was immediately sorry and I wanted to say so, but it was too late. Gabe quietly shoved back his chair and left.

A few days after the ball game, Luke came home from school as angry as a hornet. I saw him fighting with Jimmy as they came up the driveway, punching and tussling with each other—and they almost never did that.

‘‘What’s wrong with you two?’’ I called from where I was working with Gabe outside the barn. ‘‘Stop it before one of you gets hurt.’’

‘‘He started it, Mom,’’ Jimmy said. ‘‘He’s been trying to pick a fight all the way home.’’

Luke took a swing at Jimmy and missed. ‘‘Sh-shut up!’’

‘‘Luke, come here a minute,’’ I said.

He ignored me, slamming into the house without talking to me. Gabe and I were right in the middle of unhitching the horse from the cultivator, but I planned on getting to the bottom of it as soon as we finished. I’d no sooner walked through the kitchen door a few minutes later when Becky let out a wail and Luke pushed past me like a house-a-fire. All I could get out of Becky between sobs was that Luke had done something mean to make her cry. I left her in Aunt Batty’s arms and followed Luke outside.

When I didn’t see him anywhere, I went looking for him in the barn. I heard Gabe muttering to the horses as he gave them some feed, then I saw Luke’s red hair as he ducked behind a pile of hay. He was sobbing. Gabe hurried around the side of the stall to see who was there.

‘‘Hey, buddy, what’s wrong?’’ Gabe asked. ‘‘No, wait a minute, Luke. Don’t run away. Come here. We’re friends, aren’t we? Can’t you tell me what’s wrong?’’ Luke didn’t answer, but he sniffled like he was still crying. Neither one of them saw me as I stood outside the door, listening.

‘‘Something happened at school today, didn’t it,’’ Gabe said. He wasn’t asking a question, it was as if he knew. ‘‘I’ll bet I can guess what’s wrong,’’ he continued. ‘‘Give me three tries, okay? And if I guess your secret, I promise I’ll tell you a secret about myself. Do we have a deal?’’ I didn’t hear Luke’s reply, but I could tell by what Gabe said next that he must have agreed. ‘‘Okay, let’s see. I’m guessing that some ignorant loudmouths at school teased you about something—probably something you can’t change, like having red hair or not having a father. And their teasing made you feel so angry and upset and confused that before you knew what was happening—boom! You came home and took out your feelings on everyone else. Am I right?’’

‘‘How d-did you know?’’ Luke asked in amazement.

‘‘Well, that’s where my little secret comes in. Promise you won’t tell anyone?’’ Gabe spoke so softly I had to strain to listen. ‘‘When I was in school the other kids used to make fun of me all the time because I had a lot of trouble talking. I couldn’t seem to make the words come out right. I knew what I wanted to say inside my head but my tongue would trip over the words as if it had a huge knot tied in it.’’

‘‘You st-stuttered like I do?’’

‘‘All the time.’’

‘‘Honest, Mr. Harper?’’

‘‘Cross my heart and hope to die. But my stuttering was much, much worse. I couldn’t even finish a sentence. Now that I’m all grown up, I think I know why I had a hard time getting my words out.’’

Gabe paused for such a long time I wasn’t sure if he was going to tell Luke or not. When he finally spoke his voice sounded different— softer, yet harder at the same time.