Renegade (11 page)

There were many Southerners who still thought that way, who considered the law the United States had imposed on them since the war to be unjust or too harsh. Sure, everyone had to pay import taxes, not just Southerners, but the South had once—just briefly—been another country, and it still rankled many that they were ruled by the north. Their oppressors.

She shook her head slightly, feeling like she had cobwebs growing in her brain. The tears and anger had drained what little energy she had left, and now Becks felt… empty. Emptier even than she’d been when she entered the room.

Her eyes were heavy—everything was heavy—when she stood. She needed to sleep. She needed to sleep for days, to forget what her mother had told her… to try to make sense of it. To figure out what she was going to say to Mac when she saw him tomorrow. To be able to think straight.

Sighing, Becks turned towards the door. “Goodnight, Mother.”

“Goodnight, Rebecca Beckett.”

Her hand on the jamb, she turned slightly. “Mother, one question.”

“Hmmm?”

“What do you think would happen to Zeb if someone found him with smuggled goods?”

Her mother’s expression told Becks that the older woman didn’t understand, or was pretending not to understand, so she elaborated. “If someone caught him with a wagonload of goods that had no import taxes on them, what would happen to him?”

“Nothing dear. The barrels can’t be linked to us at Beckett, and there’s no proof that the goods are smuggled.” Becks’ fingers curled against the wood. Her mother thought she was concerned about her own safety? “Besides, the army is too—”

“The army isn’t in charge anymore,
Mother
.”

Eugenia frowned, and her brows dipped in a familiar expression. Becks felt her own brows tug down identically. “Major Creel—”

“Hayes is pulling the Army out, Mother. You know that.” Eugenia’s frown grew. “Even Major Creel has admitted that he’ll be transferred back up North sometime soon. The Law is being passed over to local enforcement.”

“I
know
, Rebecca Beckett. You know that I know.
What
is your point?”

“My point,
Mother
, is that the men who are going to start upholding the laws now are
locals
. Men who have lived in the South their entire lives. Men who’ve been raised to believe that the old ways are the best.” Becks straightened as she saw her mother’s confused frown clear. “And what do you think those men will do to Zeb if they found him with a wagonload of smuggled goods? They wouldn’t
need
proof.”

They’d lynch him for sure.

It didn’t need saying. The color drained from Eugenia’s face, and Becks nodded, satisfied that she’d made her point after all. Actually, she wanted to scream at her mother:
How could you possibly claim to want what’s best for your people when you didn’t see this? How would you explain that to Debra and the rest of his family? Why didn’t you think this through?

But instead she just pushed through the door. Her feet dragged up each stair, but things would look better in the morning.

They had to.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Life at Beckett started early. Mac was yawning when he came around the side of the big house, scratching at the day’s growth along his jaw. He hadn’t taken the time to shave this morning, but got the impression that it wouldn’t be minded here. The Beckett people were too concerned with survival, and he could appreciate that.

Of course, Mac was used to keeping odd hours. He’d been at sea for over ten years now, and the tides waited for no man. The
Polaris
—and even the steam ships he’d crewed when he was younger—required hands on watch ‘round the clock. So rising early shouldn’t have been much trouble for him… and wouldn’t have been, except that he’d been up so late the night before.

Thinking about her.

No matter how much he tried to justify his interest—she
was
a fascinating woman—Mac finally had to admit to himself that he was out of luck. Becks Middleton was the marrying kind of woman, the kind who was devoted to her home and its people. And he was most certainly
not
the marrying kind of man. He valued his freedom more than anything else in the world, and would never give it up voluntarily. Even for her.

But when he saw her sitting on the front steps of her house, he had to pause. Her elbows were propped up on slightly splayed knees, her chin was cupped in one palm, and she was staring off into the distance. From here, he could see that she was dressed in a man’s worn shirt and patched skirt, similar to the evening he first met her. The evening she first fell into his arms.

She was…intriguing. He’d never known another woman to live so carefree. Even her mother, who was admittedly the most eccentric person he knew, conformed to certain expectations. But Becks lived her life with abandon, knowing exactly who she was and what she needed to do to. She knew how to really be free.

He was almost beside her when she noticed him. He wondered what she’d been thinking about, to have missed his approach so thoroughly. So he was smiling when he offered her his hand; she accepted his help to stand, but her expression was still serious. He should’ve dropped her hand, but with her standing so close to him, staring up at him, he couldn’t make himself.

Her hair was in a braid down her back, and her eyes were even prettier in the daylight. And she had freckles. How had he never noticed that before? Her skin was gold from the sun, with a sprinkling of brown freckles across the bridge of her nose and the tops of her cheeks. There was a hat on the steps beside a satchel, but apparently Becks didn’t always remember to wear it.

A full minute passed before he remembered to say something. “Good morning.”

Blue eyes blinked up at him, but she still didn’t respond. In fact, he was beginning to wonder if he’d done something to irritate her; she hadn’t so much as smiled at him yet this morning. He thought back over the night before. Had he said something she’d interpreted incorrectly or something?

But then she blushed slightly and looked off over his shoulder. “Did you eat?” She pulled her hand out of his, and turned to pick up the satchel and her hat.

“Yes.” He’d given up on sleep and gone down to the kitchen before dawn to find the place packed with Beckett people. Lola welcomed him and handed him a bowl of grits and some bacon, but made no effort to introduce him to the dark-skinned people staring at him so suspiciously. The laughter he’d heard on his way down the back stairs had turned to silence, and he’d taken his bowl to the corner where Robert sat, apart from everyone else. His friend grunted in greeting, and Mac had briefly clasped a hand to the big black man’s shoulder. It was the closest he could come to showing his support and understanding

When he sat down, he’d noticed their audience watching curiously. He’d ignored them, though, asking his friend, “Everything shipshape?” Robert hadn’t slept in the house last night, so Mac assumed that he’d taken the dinghy back to the
Polaris
.

Robert had nodded, swallowing a spoonful of grits. “And hurricane ready.”

“Wrong season, friend.”

The bigger man had shrugged. “I always thought it was a dumb saying.”

Mac had smiled, and settled in to enjoy Lola’s breakfast. It wasn’t long before a shadow had fallen across their table, and Mac looked up to see a skinny older man standing in front of them. His skin was the color of thick caramel, and his arms and cheeks were covered in what looked like burns. He’d stared down at Mac long enough for the younger man to become uncomfortable, and then slowly stuck out his right hand.

Mac had glanced at Robert then, but his friend just shrugged. The people gathered around Lola’s table weren’t offering any clue either, so Mac took the offered hand and shook it. The old man’s strength had surprised him. “Mac Baird.” He was sure these people had known who he was—there was no way his name wasn’t already halfway across the island by now—but it never hurt to be polite.

And the old man seemed to appreciate it. He nodded a few times, still pumping Mac’s hand, and finally said, “Moses, Mr. Baird.”

“Call me Mac.”

The old man had blinked then, and glanced over his shoulders at his friends. Then he offered Mac what could only be a smile—it was hard to tell with the grimace the burns pulled his expression into—and dropped his hand. “Welcome to Beckett, Mac.”

The group of blacks around the table opened to allow Moses to re-join them, and then closed again. But this time Mac hadn’t felt watched. He saw them stealing glances at the two of them in the corner, but they picked up their conversation—complete with the occasional laugh he’d heard on his way into the kitchen—as if his presence was normal.

He’d felt… accepted. Like he’d passed some sort of test, and Moses had been his judge.

But he didn’t mention any of that to Becks. He wasn’t sure what it meant, or how he felt about it… but once he did, maybe he’d ask her about it. From what he knew of Becks Middleton, she understood her people, and would know what they were feeling.

Maybe she saw something of what he wasn’t saying in his expression, because she watched him for a bit longer and then shrugged. She turned and started walking, not even looking back to see if he was following. He did, of course, and soon his longer legs brought him beside her, but she still didn’t look his way. They walked until they couldn’t see the house or the drive, along a path bordered in thick azalea bushes.

As they walked, he reached out and brushed the palms of his hands over the pink blooms, smiling slightly at the way they tickled. He was tempted to pluck one, but knew it would be a waste; the stem wasn’t long enough to tuck anywhere, and it would just wither once it was away from the bush. He caught Becks looking at him then, from the corner of her eye, but when she noticed him noticing, she turned her attention back to the path.

What had he done to upset her? Or was she just preoccupied with something else?

After fifteen minutes of walking, they reached a large field bordered by pines on two sides and cotton on the others. The whole thing was surrounded by an intermittent split-rail fence that couldn’t possibly do much to keep out the wildlife. There were stakes throughout, and even some mosquito netting over some of the seedlings. It was obviously the Beckett vegetable patch, and Mac smiled to see the children already pulling up weeds on the far side. As he watched, one boy threw a clump of dirt at another, and soon they were all yelling and laughing. One of the two woman supervising under the pines merely called something before going back to her work, and the kids settled back down. From this distance, Mac couldn’t see what the women were making, but their hands flashed in the shadows.

Becks stopped and unslung the satchel from her shoulders. He saw that they’d stopped beside a section of the field with rows and rows of hoed ground, and figured this was where they’d be working. He wondered who else would be helping them, and when they’d get here, because he suddenly realized how daunting a task planting yams actually was.

He was so deep in thought, studying the field, that he was startled to feel Becks’ hand on his forearm. She was using him to steady herself as she lifted one foot to remove her shoes. She was so intent that he didn’t even know if she’d realized what she’d done.

But then she straightened, dropping her shoes beside her satchel, and digging her toes into the dirt. A little sigh escaped her lips, curved now into a slight smile, and he was completely enamored. She took such joy in the simplicities of life, and he felt like he could watch her enjoy her world all day.

He was suddenly struck with an almost overwhelming urge to show her the
Polaris
, to see how she’d react to
his
world. He wanted to see her face as they raced over the waves, chasing the wind and their fortunes. Together.

…Where had
that
come from?

He’d never invited a woman onto his boat; he’d never had any interest in sharing her with a woman, and never known a woman to show any interest in her. He wondered if Becks would. Did she like to sail? Did she like the water as much as she apparently liked the feel of the dirt between her toes? He remembered the pluff mud coating her ankles the day they’d met, and smiled.

They began to work, pushing the dirt into small mounds, and pressing five or six pieces of cut-up yam into the earth. Becks showed him how to cover them loosely, and he was surprised how often he used his feet. In no time Mac had pulled off his own boots. She watched him do it, and while she didn’t say anything, she did smile. And her smile made him feel… like Moses had that morning. Accepted. Acceptable.

They worked in companionable silence for the first hour, until the others started to arrive. Then the work went quicker, and the air was filled with laughter and teasing. The Beckett people—mostly women, a few with young children strapped on their backs—seemed to warily accept him, but he didn’t try to engage any of them. Instead, he just chuckled at their bantering and enjoyed their singing. A few of the women had really beautiful voices, and their songs of choice seemed to be snippets of hymns.

He reached the end of a row—Becks was beside him, and the others were farther away—when he put both hands in the small of his back and stretched. It felt good, and he appreciated the simple pleasures of the sun on his face and the dirt under his bare feet. He wondered if this was what she felt like, every day.

“Becks?”

She jerked at the sound of her name, and whirled on him looking a little more interested than necessary. He wondered what she’d been thinking about.

He smiled, and she flushed. Well,
that
was interesting. “What happens next?” He’d only completed one full row himself, and there was plenty left to do, but he was curious. “Do we just leave ‘em like this?”

An expression of surprise flitted across her face, and then she looked back down the row he’d just completed. “Some of the women have already left to get the straw. We’ll thresh it over the mounds to protect them a bit, and then hope for rain.” Her expression turned almost wary when she said, “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that you don’t know this. There’s probably not a lot of yams at sea.”

Mac rubbed one finger along his nose. “Well, you’d be surprised. Potatoes can last a while. But I was raised on a plantation. I remember watching the planting each spring.”

“Really?” She didn’t bother hiding her surprise. “Where?”

“Baird’s Cove. Both of my grandfathers were merchants—well, my great-grandfather was probably a pirate, although it’s hard to say.” His mother’s stories about her grandfather and his buccaneer cohort had kept Mac entertained for hours as a youngster. He’d especially loved the tales about the smugglers, and the way Edward Teach had blockaded Charleston for a ransom of some medicine. “But my father turned to cotton, rather than shipping, and my brother’s rebuilt the plantation since the war.”

“But it doesn’t interest you?” She was doing that thing again where she kept her expression hidden. But he could tell that she was disappointed he didn’t love planting as much as sailing.

He shrugged. “I’ve been at sea for ten years. I don’t remember much of how Baird’s Cove is run, even when I visit home. I’ve never stood in the middle of the field and just smelled the dirt before, that’s for sure.” It didn’t smell like the woods around the Ashley River did… but the smell was enticing somehow, just the same.

“And now that you have?” Was that hope he saw in her uniquely blue eyes?