In All Places (Stripling Warrior) (5 page)

I ducked under a branch, even as the ground became steep.
“It is hard for me, yes. Sometimes it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, you get angry. You take it the wrong way. We’ve no trust between us anymore. I don’t want it to be like this between us when we are married. I hate that it is like this between us now.”

He glanced down at me.
His quiet words seemed to bring the forest to utter stillness. “I have not asked you to marry me, Keturah.”

But he would.
I laughed. “You can’t tell me you mean to go against our families’ wishes.”

“Is that all it would be for you?
Obedience?”

I stopped walking and leaned my back against a tree.
Taking my water skin from my belt, I said, “Zeke, of course not.”

He stopped and turned to face me.
He looked at me as if he didn’t recognize me but felt like he should.

I drank and then re
turned the water skin to my belt and offered him a smile. “How could you even think it?”

He raised one brow, but not unkindly
, and moved closer to me.

“
So what have you been thinking about?” I asked him.

He smiled.
“It’s none of your—”

“Yes it is!
I told you what I was thinking!” And I reached out and pinched him.

He
pinched me back so quickly, so instinctively, that I laughed out loud. Had I forgotten how he could tease? How his eyes could be bright with humor? He laughed too, and it felt good to be laughing with him. I had missed it so much, and I turned away from him for a moment so he wouldn’t see the tears that stung my eyes.

If tears fell from my
eyes, this would end. Even if they were tears of happiness.

This was exactly the way it
had been before, but it wasn’t until later when I was alone in my tent that I would realize how very sad that was. It had been three years since the stripling warriors had left for the war. Zeke and I had grown, learned, been tried, and progressed in many ways, maybe every way possible except one—our relationship had not progressed.

Later
when I was alone in my tent, I would tell myself a strong relationship would have been able to withstand all that had happened.

And what had happened?
All Zeke had ever done was love me.

“Just tell me,” I laughed, trying desperately to hide the deep ache that filled my chest.
Lately, God had filled me with such peace and light that this feeling scared me.

“I was thinking of how you’ve changed,” he said slowly, as if he thought he might make me mad, as if he were bracing himself for my angry outburst.

And the fact that there was no outburst coming was evidence that I had changed.

I eased my hand into his, and still the ache in my heart did not calm.
The familiar clasp of our hands kept the tears stinging at my eyes, but I blinked them back.

I swallowed hard.
“It seems God can even change the heart of a brat like me,” I said. I tried to keep it light. It even sounded light, I thought. I may have fooled Zeke, but I did not fool myself. God had touched my heart, and I could not deny it.

“I never thought you were a brat,” he said sincerely.
He touched my hair. “Honestly, I never meant to make you feel that way.”

“I know,” I said.
“It was the way I felt about myself—that someone as good and sincere as you could never truly love someone as undeserving as me. I’m impulsive and too headstrong. I talk when I should be silent. I thought you had convinced yourself you loved me because of duty to your family. And when you did not support me—”

“But I did support you!
” he cut in. “I asked Helaman to intercede with your Mother. I counseled with Lib and Seth, Micah, your mother, Kalem and my father. All to ease your way, to make your dream possible! Don’t stand there and tell me I didn’t support you.”

I was not the only one with tears that threatened to fall.

I took a breath. “When I
thought
you didn’t support me, didn’t understand me.”

“
Not like Gid?”

I instantly gripped his hand tight so he wouldn’t let go of me.
My mind raced for the perfect thing to say. But I wasn’t perfect, and I couldn’t find it.

“
That is in the past,” I finally said. “We cannot stay the same as we were. You think I have changed, but you have too. Sometimes, I feel we are strangers. I hate it.”

I held tight to his hand.
He couldn’t go anywhere without me. I wouldn’t let him. I reached up with my other hand and fingered the crinkles at the corners of his eyes and the hard angles of his jaw, hoping somehow that my touch said what my words could not.

“
Say you understand me,” I said as I let myself rediscover the small changes in his handsome features.

“
It’s not possible,” he said, the hint of a sad smile touching his lips.

I searched his eyes. Familiar. Warm. Beloved.
“Then say you still love me.”

H
is answer was a kiss, warm in the cool air of the forest and filled with all that was right between us.

Then
he murmured, “Duty,” against my lips, as if the very idea that he kissed me out of duty was ridiculous. He eased me back against the tree and showed me that it was.

“I could
not stop loving you if I tried,” he said when he pulled away. “And believe me, I’ve tried.”

Helaman planned to take Manti without a battle.

“
If possible,” he said, “we will enact a decoy similar to what we did at Antiparah. But this time, we will send men back to take the city in the army’s absence.”

After Shem had conducted the captains’ meeting and most of the
captains had departed, Helaman laid out the particulars of his stratagem to the members of the council and detailed the parts each of us would play in it.

I would be among th
e men who took the city. Micah and Zeke would be part of the decoy—the bait for our trap. Darius and Jarom would be out with Kenai, acting as scouts for the first time.

“I don’t understand,” I said to Gideon a
s we left the large stone building with Seth and Eli. “You and Teomner are to march out unseen by the enemy? How is it to be done?”

“
Maybe Kenai can give us some pointers.”

Gideon had to
work with Kenai frequently, but I knew they weren’t on very friendly terms. Kenai was Zeke’s best friend, but since the day I had walked into Antiparah as a spy, Kenai had all but given me over to Gideon’s care. He had accepted what none of the rest of us had—what none of us could.

“I’ll
take Seth and Enos and their hundreds. Teomner will lead two hundred of the Nephites.”

“
Do you plan to take Manti with only four hundred men?”

“And one
pretty girl.”

I
blushed and pushed him playfully away.

Seth
cleared his throat in an obvious attempt to put a stop to any flirting. “We can take Manti,” he said confidently.

Not if their entire army d
oesn’t leave
, I thought wryly. But that wasn’t how I truly felt. I knew—because I could feel it—that God was with us. I knew that He would preserve us and make our arms strong. I knew that he could speak to His children through their hearts.

I wanted to tell Seth and Gideon, two of the men I admired
most, that I was going home after the campaign for Manti. I wanted to try out the words, but I hesitated and after I had hesitated too long, the moment passed.

“How long will it take to get to Manti?” I asked instead.

“Weren’t you listening?” asked Seth.

Gideon laughed.
“She only listens to things that are none of her business.”

“When
she thinks no one will notice,” Seth added with a grin.

Eli, as usual, did not say anything, but
he laughed with the others.

I would miss these
men so much when I went home.

That wasn’t the first time I
considered never seeing Gideon again after I went home, but it hit me hard that night. It didn’t make me feel better to realize his good mood that evening was because of the prospect of improving his military career. If the campaign against Manti was successful, his rank would rise again.

Gideon did
not like to shed blood. I had come to know that he abhorred it. But he wanted liberty and the freedom to live safely and worship as one chose. He wanted to protect those freedoms for others, because he could—because God had made him strong where others were weak. It was a calling he felt in his soul and one he did not put off lightly.

Men like Zeke and Micah, Seth, Lib and all the others would go home and become fathers and protect their families.
Men like Gideon would give their all to protecting the nation.

I slept little that night, and by the third watch I crawled out of my tent intending to sit with whoever
guarded my door.

To my great surprise, Jarom sat
quietly scanning the grounds.

Nearing
sixteen, Zeke’s younger brother looked exactly like Zeke had at that age—tall and muscular in stature, with long dark hair, a prominent, hooked nose, and deep, soulful brown eyes.

Just
then he wore one of Zeke’s expressions as he sensed my movements in the moonlight and let his eyes follow me while he stayed still as stone.

“
I thought you were Zeke for a moment,” I said softly so as not to wake anyone.

He snorted.
“Disappointed?” He scooted a little so I could sit near him on the log at his small fire, which was little more than coals.

“Of course not,” I said.

I liked Jarom a lot. In fact, the more time went on and the older he got, the more I liked him. Jarom was good-natured. He teased, but he was never annoying in it. He always knew when enough was enough. He was smart, intuitive, and compassionate. He was capable. Anything he didn’t know and had a need to know, he just learned. He was also very in tune with people and their feelings, though I would never have thought to describe him as sensitive.

“Quiet night?” I asked when I
had been sitting near him for a few moments.

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t know you were part of this ridiculous watch on me,” I said, though I didn’t feel it was ridiculous anymore, not since the nightly raids during the siege on Cumeni.

“You’re my sister,” he said simply
, surprising me because, though we had grown up practically as siblings, I was not his sister. “Which is unfortunate for me,” he went on. “I wish Zeke didn’t have a claim on you.”

I looked
over sharply, catching his rueful gaze into the fire. Jarom could tease, yes, but this didn’t sound like teasing.

“Jarom?”

For long moments he didn’t reply, just stared into the coals trying to control his breathing. “I shouldn’t have said that,” he said at last.

“Did you mean it?” I asked, tentatively stepping
into a topic I knew could be quite delicate and also volatile if not handled with great care.

He
took a deep breath. “Yes, I meant it.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands between them. He looked back at me over his shoulder, which had become broad and strong. “You’ve no idea what effect you have on people, Ket—your laughter, your healing hands.” He shook his head and looked down at his own hands. “You don’t just heal physical wounds. You make every boy in this army feel like he’s important, like someone loves him and cares if he dies in this rotten war.”

“Jarom.”

“You do.”

“
I can’t help the way others see me.”

He sat up. “So it’s just an act?”

“Of course not. I do love the warriors. All of them.”

“Do you love me?”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or smack him upside the head. “You know I do.”

“But not the way you love Zeke,” he insisted.

Scooting closer to him, I said gently, “I could not love anyone the way I love Zeke.”

“
You can tell yourself that, Ket.” He leaned closer to murmur, “But I don’t believe you.”

His breath was warm on my neck, and even though the coals were barely lit, my face flamed.
I was suddenly aware how alone we were and how close we were sitting to each other in the darkness, and how, despite what he had said when I sat down, he was not my brother.

I slid away from him. “I’m sorry Zeke is first in everything,” I said. “I never thought what it must mean to be a second son.”

But I thought of how Hemni, their father, had spoken
with such admiration of Jarom’s skill at the hunt. I thought of how Mother loved him like her own son and how highly I esteemed him and his acuity. I thought of how Darius depended on his friendship, hardly able even to communicate if Jarom wasn’t completing his sentences for him, and I thought perhaps Jarom had very little idea of the effect he himself had on people.

“Have you thought to talk to Kenai?
I bet if anyone would understand, Kenai would.”

He shook his head.
“Kenai is Zeke’s best friend.”

“He is also Micah’s younger brother,” I pointed out
, and I wondered what Kenai might feel toward Micah if the kingdom still existed, if Micah had become a ruler over our people.

Jarom shrugged.

“Darius said Kenai has been training your unit to spy. Is it like hunting?”

I thought only to remind him that he was a better hunter than his older brother, but a darkness slid over his eyes and his breaths became deliberate.

“Sometimes,” he said, “it is very much like hunting.”

“Jar—”

“Zeke doesn’t deserve you.” He interrupted me. “He’s not even nice to you.”

“That’s because I cause him so much worry.
I’m a great trial to his patience.”

“The person you love should not be a
trial. She should not be someone you have to tolerate.”

He was right.

“That’s not love, Keturah.” He turned to look at me with a lidded gaze. “If I were in Zeke’s place, I would not treat you so callously. I would not raise my voice to you or ever cause you heartache.”

He sounded so much like Zeke
had back in the village, when he had first decided we should become betrothed, so ardent and sincere, and he looked so much like him. I nearly laughed, but there was nothing funny in Jarom’s feelings or his conviction, and the similarities stopped at his expressions. He really wasn’t very much like Zeke at all.

“I know you wouldn’t,” I said
, making sure my sincerity sounded in my voice. “You are too much like your father.”

“I wish I was older than Zeke.
” His words vibrated with emotion, and he sounded almost angry.

Generally, when speaking of betrothals and marriage, a family would arrange a marriage for their eldest son first, and when that had been successfully done
, they would seek marriages for the remaining children in descending order. Zeke’s marriage would come first, and if he chose me, Jarom would never have the chance to. But he was forgetting that I could refuse either one or both of them.

“Maybe Zeke won’t choose me,” I suggested, not that it would help.
“Maybe he will find me too great of a trial and choose Eve of Judea instead.”

I could see my mistake because
he seemed even more determined than before. “Refuse Zeke and wait for me,” he said softly. “I would always let you do what you want. My brother won’t.”

Maybe
he was right, but choosing Jarom over Zeke would create problems of its own.

“I know you would, Jarom.”

I also knew that he did not love me enough to insist upon the rules that I now knew I must abide by. He would let me recklessly destroy myself.

At first I
had resented Zeke’s worry for me. I had fought against all his fears for me. But over the years I had come to see that his fears were not unfounded, and he had foreseen so many things that I had not.

Lib’s constant guard had helped me
recognize this. At first I had felt imprisoned by it, but gradually I had realized that the only real freedom I had was inside the circle of his protection because the snares outside of it were so much worse.

“Wait for me,” Jarom said. “U
ntil I get older.”

I
wondered if he realized he was actually asking me to marry him. I searched his face. He was sincere. He thought he loved me. But this was new, it had to be. I wondered what had happened, what had changed.

Nothing had changed for me.
I still thought of him as a brother, though it was different from what I felt for Darius. I shouldn’t encourage his feelings, but there was no need to hurt him, either.

“I am not currently considering any offers of marriage,” I said, looking him in the eye.
“That’s what you’re offering, right?”

He stared at me and his jaw tightened, and for some reason, that worked like a nod.

“When the time comes, I will consider your offer then,” I told him.

He had the same way of showing relief while still schooling the look on his face as Zeke did.
He leaned toward me, and he looked as though he might seal our agreement with an unwise kiss.

I stopped him gently with a hand to his chest.
“Only think what the next moment will mean if I choose your brother.”

I thought the hand on his chest would discourage him, but h
e covered it with one of his own and leaned in to place a soft kiss on my lips. His boldness startled me as much as his sweet kiss did. This was Jarom!

I expected awkwardness to follow
. Jarom didn’t seem to feel it, but he should have. He should have felt the utter wrongness of it, like I did. There were no circumstances under which I could return his feelings.

“Does Darius know?” I asked him.
“About this?”

“No one can know.”

I nodded slowly as I returned my gaze to the fire. Did he think we would marry in secret?

“If you’ll get this fire going, I’ll
start the morning meal,” I said with a glance to the east where the sky was beginning to lighten.