Choices of the Heart (38 page)

She had received many fine gifts in her life. Her English relatives liked lavishing their wealth on their poor American relations, who weren’t particularly poor at all, especially once her brothers started earning a living in trade. But they sent her patterns and the fabrics to make herself gowns too fine for Seabourne, fans from Paris, and hats from Italy. Her shoes were fashioned of the finest Moroccan leather, and she even owned a muff of Russian sable, which due to the mild climate of the coast never saw use. They were all the fripperies money could buy.

No money could buy the love and attention that went into this length of homespun linen stitched with cotton floss.

“You don’t like it?” Liza’s lower lip quivered.

“Liza.” Esther cleared her throat. “I’ve never received a more precious gift.” She hugged the younger woman. “Thank you.”

“It’s nothin’, really.” Liza kicked at the mud. “Bethann said as how you’re not as good as we all thought you were and we should send you about your business, but I don’t believe her?” Her declaration ended with a question.

“I suppose that’s up to your mother to decide. You can ask her what Bethann told her.” Esther busied herself hanging a chemise so gauzy and lacy, her face heated at the notion that everyone could see it. So far, she had hung her under things to dry inside her room to preserve her modesty. Now ruffles and beribboned trims fluttered in the breeze for all to see.

For Griff to see.

Except he hadn’t been around all day. He’d inhaled a cup of steaming coffee in the kitchen, then vanished somewhere beyond the compound. If something went well for her, her clothes would dry before he returned.

She didn’t have time to concern herself about that, for Mrs. Tolliver set them all to work cleaning debris from her kitchen garden and picking up fallen branches around the compound to use as kindling. Esther worked beside the others, but her hands hurt so badly, tears sprang unbidden to her eyes, and when she wiped them away, she saw blood on her fingers where more blisters had broken.

“I have to take care of my hands,” she said to anyone within hearing distance and ran across the yard. Her satchel contained an ointment she thought might help—lavender and rose hips, fragrant and soothing. She stood at the kitchen table trying to apply it to herself.

“Let me help.” Griff appeared in the kitchen doorway, filling it.

She glanced at him. “You’ve managed to miss out on the hard work.”

“I’ve been inspecting storm damage at the mine and about, making sure we don’t have flooding to worry us none.”

“Oh.” She regretted her acid tongue. “I should have thought of that.”

“No reason why. You’re a town girl.” He touched her shoulder. “I need to talk to you.”

“About . . . what?” She discovered she was trembling, certain he had drawn the worst conclusions from what she’d admitted to Bethann and was about to send her away.

He came to the table and took the salve from her hands. “About the fire. What do you need me to do?”

“Rub it in.”

“My fingers are rough. I might hurt you.”

“You won’t.”

She had hurt herself by letting herself fall in love with him.

“You have such pretty hands.” He cradled one in his palm and used the gentle touch he applied to the dulcimer strings to smooth salve over her blisters. “I hate to see them marred.”

As calloused and scarred as his hands were, they were beautiful, so broad and strong, so tender and sensitive. He could wield an ax that split a log in two, or he could coax heart-stirring music from a set of thin strings. He didn’t know Shakespeare or John Milton or Henry Fielding, but he knew a hundred hymns of praise and ballads. He didn’t know much Scripture, but he knew the Lord loved him, the difference between the right way and the wrong way to treat people, and how to love. He worked hard without complaint and took the time to show someone else the grandeur of his mountains.

How could she have ever flirted with a soulless man like Alfred Oglevie—for however short a time she had considered him a potential suitor—when men like Griffin Tolliver existed?

She bent her head and kissed the back of his hand.

His fingers stilled. “Why? To thank me for helping you on Independence Day?”

“No.” She looked him in the eye. “Because I have never met a finer man.”

“A finer man would have protected you last night.”

“You saved me. I was stuck in that window until you came along.”

“You’d have gotten out, I reckon.” He released her hand and lifted a strand of her hair to the light. “How did it happen, do you think?”

Esther shrugged. “I don’t know. Lightning? I’m not sure where the fire was when I ran into the cabin.”

“When you ran into—” Griff’s hand dropped onto her shoulder. “Where were you?”

“I was in the barn. There was a leak in the roof, so I went for a bucket and then heard the cat in labor.”

“So you went to help, of course?” His eyes were soft as they gazed down at her.

She licked suddenly dry lips. “She didn’t need me, but I wanted to be there. New life—” She lowered her gaze to her blistered palms, considerably better for the salve. “It’s beautiful to see happen. I mean, it’s messy, but it’s . . . special.”

“I think you—” He touched her face. “Tell me exactly what happened after that.” His voice was tight, his body tense.

Esther’s brows arched. “I, um, smelled smoke and went hunting for the source.”

His hand dropped to one of hers. “Did you know your room was burning before you went in?”

“Yes, but I had to save something of mine. It’s all I have and—”

“You went into a burning building for things?” His eyes glittered, sparkled like moonlight—or was it firelight?—on broken glass. “That was right idiotic of you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but I’m all right and have some things. But Griff—” She leaned away from a sudden intensity in his gaze. “I didn’t tell you. With everything else, I forgot to tell you that something broke that window before the fire started.”

“You mean someone.” He spun away on his heel and began to pace the kitchen. “I knew it. I knew something was just wrong about that fire. And if you’d been there—” He swung toward her, wrapped his arms around her, and held her close. “That fire wasn’t set by no lightning strike. Someone set it o’purpose.”

“I know.” She was shaking, and he held her more tightly. She could scarcely breathe and didn’t care. “But they didn’t want to kill me. Surely they didn’t want to kill me. No one hates me that much. Please—”

“Shh.” He tilted her head back and kissed her, drawing away slowly at the sound of footfalls outside the kitchen door. He smiled. “One way to stop you from talking too much.”

“I don’t talk too much.”

“No, ma’am, sometimes you don’t talk enough, but talk now.” He glanced past her. “Bethann, are you all right?”

“Right enough.” She stepped into the kitchen. “I wanta hear about how that fire got started. It were a Brooks, weren’t it?”

“We can’t reach that conclusion.” Griff caught Esther’s gaze. “Your trouble back home didn’t follow you here, did it?”

“No.”

“There was that note,” he pointed out.

“I think Hannah wrote it.”

“Hannah!” the two Tollivers exclaimed.

“Why would Hannah want rid of you?” Griff asked.

Esther told them of her conversation with Hannah while she busied herself replacing the lid on the jar of ointment and stowing it in her bag. “She seemed distressed about something, but while I was there these past two weeks, she was . . . friendly. She’s also—” She paused. That wasn’t something she should share.

The Tollivers looked at her expectantly.

“Nothing important. The menfolk aren’t around much, is all.”

And Henry Gosnoll barely spoke to his wife.

“I’m going over there.” Griff strode to the door, his face a taut mask, expression inscrutable.

Esther gazed down at the dress whose skirt ended at the top of her boots. “I’d like to go too and ensure Zach is healing well.”

And ensure Griff didn’t do something stupid.

“If you’ll wait long enough for me to change my dress,” she concluded.

Bethann said nothing. She simply walked out of the house and across the yard, still appearing weak, but her head high.

“I’ll wait.” He followed his sister from the house, then crossed the yard to the burned-out schoolhouse.

Esther snatched her dress off the line and ran upstairs to change. How she would love a bath or a swim before donning the clean clothes. No time to concern herself about that. Griff might not wait for her. The day was wasting if they wanted to get over the ridge before sundown.

Perhaps she should stop him from going. He couldn’t ride up and make accusations against Hannah without trouble.

Esther’s fingers stilled on the hooks at her neck. Making trouble. Someone had been trying to make trouble between the families since Griff had been ambushed on the road east. Everyone denied it. Yet someone was guilty. Bethann wanting revenge for being jilted again? Zach or Hannah? Griff? None should have any kind of reason for wanting trouble. They should want peace. Someone did not.

Heart heavy, Esther descended the steps to find Griff waiting for her with saddled horses. As though she weighed nothing, he lifted her onto the mare’s back, then mounted and led the way up the track toward the Brookses’ compound.

Riding single file on separate mounts, they couldn’t talk quietly enough to keep their voices from ringing through the forest. Esther kept pondering how trouble could benefit anyone. Hannah had won over Bethann in getting the husband. Zach and Griff were friends. Or had been friends until she came along. Now they seemed at odds, trying to outdo one another in giving her attention. At least Zach had. Griff hadn’t really pursued her. He had seen to her welfare. He had taught her the dulcimer because she wanted him to. But Zach had pursued her. Every time she and Griff seemed to be edging toward a line between friendship and courtship, Zach grew ardent in his attentions as though—

As though trying to make Griff jealous?

Esther edged her mare up beside Griff’s gelding despite the narrowness of the track. “Why would the Brookses want to make trouble?”

“You mean start the fighting again?” Griff reined in and looked at her. “I’ve been pondering on that but don’t know for certain. They’d have to get rid of all of us Tollivers to get ahold of the mine for themselves. And same with the land.”

“What about why the feuding started?”

Griff bowed his head. “I’m ashamed to say my pa started it. He tried to shoot Henry Gosnoll at his wedding but got the bride’s eldest brother instead. It was . . . bloody.”

“I’m sorry.” She rested her hand on his. “I can’t even think how that must have been.”

“I vowed that day to keep peace. Things’d be quiet for a while, then someone would get ahold of that Gosnoll whiskey and things’d start up again over nothing much. But the preacher tried to bring peace about, got Zach and me to make that vow.” He flashed her a quick smile. “It’s one I’ve managed to keep.”

“But not Zach.” She touched the healing mark on his face.

“Not Zach.” He turned his head toward a stand of walnut trees, as solid as the mountain and a hundred feet high if they were twenty. “Zach has just never been as good at things as I am. Everything I’ve done, he’s tried to do, and most of the time he don’t do so well.”

“Envy is a powerful emotion.”

“I expect you’d know that, you being so pretty and smart and kind.” The tenderness of his look melted her, scrambled her insides.

She worried her lower lip. “I’m not that kind, Griff. You’re kind. Zach is kind. I’m probably thinking the wrong way.”

“We can only know if we ask.” He nudged his mount forward, and they began the downhill trek to the Brookses’ holding.

They tethered their mounts outside the gate, where lush meadow grass gave them fodder. Then they approached the house side by side.

Hannah greeted them on the front steps. “What you doing here?”

“I came to see how Zach goes on.” Esther offered a friendly smile and hefted her satchel.

“And we need to talk,” Griff added. “To all of you.”

“Talk.” Hannah curled her upper lip. “I thought Tollivers shot first and talked later.”

“Maybe so, but I want to talk now.”

“And I do need to look in on the patient.” Esther’s voice was too bright, too cheerful.

Wordlessly, Hannah twitched around and led the way into the house, into the parlor, where Zach half sat, half lay against the wall and a pile of pillows. He smiled at Esther but gave Griff a wary glance.

“How’s the wound?” Esther asked. “Any more fever?”

He held out his hands to her. “I’ll do better for you coming back to me.”

“She didn’t come back to you.” Griff’s tone was cold. “Twice you’ve foisted your attentions on her when she didn’t want them. At least twice I’ve seen.”

Twice he’d seen. Twice Zach had done so. The rest of the time, the times when Griff wasn’t around, Zach was a perfect gentleman.

Esther sank to her knees on the floor beside Zach’s bed. “Why, Zach? Why do you try to get me to kiss you or look like I will when Griff is around, but not otherwise?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” But his eyes shifted to the right, then down, avoiding her gaze. “Just a coincidence.”

“I don’t think so.” She began to ache inside, struggling to set aside old images. “You think Griff likes me, and you want him to think I favor you. Why?”

Zach plucked at the quilt covering him and stared at his restless fingers as though sewing a fine seam. “I’m tired of pretending all’s right between the families. It ain’t and it ain’t never going to be. I thought maybe for once I could get something he wanted.”

“I didn’t know I wanted her,” Griff said. “Not at first.”

“You thinking I’ll believe that?” Zach glared at his cousin. “I saw the first day you met how it would be. You two flirting like we might as well have planned a wedding right then.”

“I didn’t—we didn’t—” Esther shook her head and fixed her eyes on Hannah. “Is that why you wanted me to go away? So there wouldn’t be trouble between them?”

“I heard things in Seabourne.” Hannah met Esther’s eyes, hers unnaturally bright. “Didn’t think you was good enough for either of them if they was true.”