Pieces of Sky (54 page)

The path ended at a gurgling stream, banked by leafy shrubs and long-limbed oaks that formed a drooping canopy overhead. For once it wasn’t raining, but the air was thick with fog rising from the damp ground. Flowers blooming beside the path gave off a scent unfamiliar to him, and somewhere, in a call he didn’t recognize, a bird fussed at their intrusion. Breathing hard, he turned to Jessica .

With mist swirling around her feet like spun sugar clouds and torchlight shimmering off her jewels and tears, she looked like something from his dreams. He wanted to hold her, to assure himself she was real, but uncertainty held him back. The year had changed her. She was no longer his Jessica. Nor was she wholly Her Ladyship . . . but something in between. More assured. Older. Sadder. And if possible, more beautiful. Releasing her hand, he stepped back and said the only thing he could think of—the only thing that mattered. “I love you, Jessica.”

She drew in a deep, shuddering breath and slowly let it out. She wiped a hand over her wet cheek then lifted her head and studied him. “Why have you come now, after all this time?”

Not the response he’d hope for. But he pushed gamely ahead. He knew she was angry, and allowed that she had a right to be. And if he was required to do a bit of groveling to win her back, he’d gladly do it. “I realized there were worse things than losing the ranch.”

“Like what?”

“Losing you.”

Anger flashed. “You didn’t
lose
me, Brady. You threw me away.”

Groveling
and
begging. “I thought I was doing the right thing, Jessica. I was wrong.”

“It took you a year to figure that out?” She started crying again, which only added fuel to her anger. “Now look what you’ve done. I never cry. Yet around you I become a watering pot.”

Brady had noticed that. He wasn’t sure how it was his fault but he knew better than to argue.

Conjuring a lacy handkerchief from somewhere, she blotted the tears from her cheeks. Once she had herself in hand, she hiked her chin in that familiar defiant gesture that always brought a catch to his heart. “Are your intentions to stay or take me back?”

“Either. Whatever you want.” Which he suddenly realized was the absolute unequivocal truth. Echoing Jack’s sentiment—Brady knew he would do anything, live anywhere, be whatever Jessica wanted, as long as she would have him.

She blinked puffy eyes. “What about RosaRoja?”

“Hank can take care of it.”

Jessica’s heart faltered, then accelerated to a frantic wing beat against her ribs. “You’re giving up the ranch? For me?”

He spread his hands. “I’m here, aren’t I?”

Her mouth went slack. Then joy surged through her
. He chose me. Over RosaRoja.
She felt like singing, laughing, dancing a jig through the mist.
I won.

Brady watched her, a confused but hopeful smile on his face. He looked so dashing in his fine suit, so properly English—except for the boots and the ever-present stubble and that wrinkled cravat. So . . . un-Brady. If she didn’t know the heart of the man standing before her, she wouldn’t have known how great the sacrifice he had come here to make.

For her.

She almost burst into tears again.

Brady. In England. Where there was too little sky and too many fences. Doing what? Sitting on the terrace sipping tea while he visited with the vicar? Making a list of all the words he would have to cross from his vocabulary?

It would destroy him.

Which was why her trunks were packed and the tickets bought, and in two weeks she and Adrian, escorted by Dougal, were to begin the long journey back to where they belonged. Back to him. What if they had crossed en route? The irony of it almost made her laugh out loud.

She dabbed at her running nose. “I doubt you’d be happy here.” Nor would she, watching him try to become something he wasn’t. She loved him for what he was, not what she could make of him. Although in that suit he was utterly charming. Maybe she could convince him to keep it.

“I’d be happy wherever you are, Jessica. You’re my lodestone. My true north. Without you, I’m lost. Don’t you know that?”

She felt another tear roll down her cheek. With a shaky laugh, she brushed it away, but more came. The man knew how to charm her, he surely did.

“I’m sorry I hurt you, Jessica. It won’t happen again. I swear it.”

I’m sorry.
Two simple words. But coming from this man, they made her heart whole.

“You’re crying again.”

“Happy tears.”

She felt his hand brush along her cheek. “Does that mean you forgive me?”

Lifting her head, she smiled at the man before her—this magnificent, arrogant, utterly exasperating man who had traveled thousands of miles to arrive unannounced on her doorstep, expecting her to simply jump into his arms as if he had not completely ignored her for almost a year.

She adored him beyond reason.

She would forgive him anything.

Before she could tell him that, words rushed from his mouth. “I’m rich now, Jessica. I can give you anything you want. We struck silver and—”

“I don’t care.” Pressing her palm against his solid chest, she felt the hard, fast beat of his heart. Just having him within reach calmed her . . . sustained her.

His voice grew strained, almost desperate. “I’m building a new house—a big house, with lots of windows and wide porches and a cookstove sent all the way from—”

“I don’t care.” She lifted her hand to trail fingertips over his bristly jaw. It didn’t matter where they lived. Annie could watch over Bickersham Hall until a daughter was born. And if she and Brady never had a daughter, then so be it. Annie’s daughter, Rebecca, could have it. All that was truly important was that she and Brady were together, wherever that might be.

Air exploded from his chest. “Then what do you want, Jessica? Just tell me.”

She smiled, despite the tears she couldn’t seem to stem. “You.” Reaching higher, she grabbed his earlobe and gently tugged his face down so she could press her lips to his. “I want you, you big dolt,” she whispered, kissing him again. “You’re all I’ve ever wanted.”

Tension seeped out of him in a long shaky breath. “You’ve got me.”

She felt the tremble in his arms as they closed around her, pulling her so tightly against his body her toes barely touched the ground. It was the most wonderful feeling in the world. “And now that you do,” he said, resting his forehead against hers, “what are you going to do with me?”

She tilted her face to nip his bottom lip. “I suppose I’ll have to marry you and take you home. It would be the proper thing, after all, insomuch as you’ve already had your way with me.”

He stilled. Then he slowly lifted his head. In the glow of the torchlight, his eyes seemed to burn with blue flames. “Whose home?” he asked in that husky voice. “Mine? Or yours?”

“Ours, you sweet, silly man.” At his look of relief, she laughed, joy overflowing her heart. “Something sturdy,” she said, slipping her arms around his neck. “With windows all around—”

“And rockers on the porch,” he added.

“And a lovely view of the mesquite tree.”

 

“MOLLY? WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE? HOW DID YOU GET in?”

So much for a warm welcome, Molly McFarland thought as she set down her valise and turned to meet her sister’s husband as he came down the staircase of his elegant Savannah home. “The door was open.”

“Damn those kids.” Reaching past her, he shut the door so forcefully the panes in the window beside it rattled. Standing back, he glared at her. “Why are you here?”

“The doctor sent for me.” Molly unpinned her hat and hung it on a hook beside the door, then turned to her brother-in-law with what she hoped was a pleasant expression. In truth, she despised Daniel Fletcher, especially after the callus way he had treated the family—most particularly, his two stepchildren—after her father’s death a month ago. “How is she?”

Fletcher made a dismissive motion. He seemed distracted and on edge. Not his usual, fastidious self with that unshaven beard and soiled shirt. “Fine, fine. There was no need for you to come all the way from Atlanta.”

“The doctor seemed to think there was. Lung fever is quite serious.” Hearing the snappish tone in her voice, she reined in her temper. “I’m not here to interfere with the doctor, Daniel. I’ve come as her sister, not a nurse. If there’s anything I can do to—”

“There isn’t,” he cut in harshly. “You’re not needed.”

Molly looked steadily at him, refusing to back down, wondering as she had so many times, why her older sister had taken such an unpleasant man as her second husband. Grief over her first husband’s death had been part of it, no doubt. And fear of raising a six-year-old daughter and eight-year-old son on her own had added to it.

“May I see her?” she asked.

Being the weak, bullying man he was, Fletcher looked away first, his gaze as shifty as that of a guilty child. “Oh, all right. Stay if you must.” He turned and went down the hall to his office, slamming the door hard behind him.

Molly wondered how he could bear to go into that room. She had only had the courage to venture through that door once. The walls had been cleaned by then, the reek of gunpowder and blood masked by the cloying scent of funeral flowers and smoke from Daniel’s cigar. But Papa’s ghost had lingered. She could feel him still.

“Did you come to save Mama?”

Molly looked up to see her nephew, Charlie, sitting on the top step of the stairs. He looked lost and small and too knowing for his eight years. He’d already lost his father and grandfather. Was he to lose his mother now, too? “I’ve come to try,” she answered.

“It doesn’t matter. He’ll get her anyway.”

Molly frowned in confusion. “Who will get her?”

“The monster. He’ll get us, too.” Jumping to his feet, Charlie darted away, his footfalls ending with the thud of an upstairs door.

Frowning, Molly started up the stairs. As she rose above the parlor, she looked down through the open door to see it was a shambles, rugs thrown back, drawers half open, books scattered about the cluttered floor. Apparently, Fletcher hadn’t seen fit to hire a cleaning girl during Nellie’s illness. Typical.

Outside the master bedroom, she paused for a moment to prepare herself, then knocked. When there was no response, she gently pushed open the door.

The room beyond was still and dark, the curtains pulled tight over the tall windows. The air was rank with the smell of soiled bedding, illness and despair. Except for labored breathing, it was silent.

How long had her sister been left unattended? When had she last had her bedding changed, her face washed or her hair brushed? Had Fletcher simply left her in the dark to suffer alone? “Nellie?” she called.

“Molly . . . is that . . . you?” The voice was a weak rasp, followed by a bout of coughing that seemed to rip through her sister’s throat.

Rushing across the room, Molly bent beside the bed, her years of medical training at her father’s side overcoming her disgust with Fletcher and her terror for her sister. “Yes, I’m here,” she said in the calm, soothing voice Papa had taught her.

Nellie looked ghastly, a mere shadow of the lovely woman she had once been. Her skin seemed stretched over her bones and was an unhealthy gray except for bright spots of color high on her cheeks. Her lovely green eyes shone feverishly bright and her welcoming smile looked more like a grimace.

Recognizing encroaching death when she saw it, Molly sank weakly onto the edge of the mattress.
Dear God,
she cried in silent desperation
, don’t take Nellie from me, too.
“Oh, Nellie,” she choked out as tears flooded her eyes. “Why didn’t you send for me?”

“Daniel . . . wouldn’t . . . let me.”

To cover her shock, Molly brushed a lock of lank auburn hair from her sister’s hot forehead. “Well, I’m here now, dearest. And I won’t leave you.”

“You must . . .” Reaching out, Nellie grasped Molly’s shoulder and pulled her closer. Her breath stank of the infection in her lungs. Her eyes glittered in her gaunt face—but with feverish desperation, not madness.

“Take my . . . babies,” she gasped. “Before it’s . . . too late.”

Molly struggled to understand. “Take them where?”

“Away . . .”

“From Daniel?”

“He’s up to . . . something. Something . . . bad. Bombs. A new . . . war.” Her voice was so weak Molly had to lean close to hear. Every word was a wheezing struggle. “Thinks children . . . took papers. Threatened . . . hit . . . them.” A coughing fit gripped her and Nellie writhed, eyes scrunched tight as she struggled to drag air into her flooded lungs. Once the spasm passed, she opened her eyes and Molly saw that desperation had given way to grim determination. “Promise me . . . take them . . . away before . . . too late.”