“Of course.” But when she tried, her legs jellied unsteadily. Reeve’s bracing arm provided rescue. She leaned against him, tempting fate. To distract herself, Patrice looked down at her attire, horrified by what she saw.
“I can’t go back in like this. I’ll have to sneak in the back so no one will see me.”
Reeve’s interpretation was a dry drawl. “You mean so no one will see us together.”
She didn’t answer, which was his answer.
“Come on then.”
Her first step wobbled. The second buckled. Before she guessed at his intention, Reeve dipped down, slipping his other arm behind her knees to scoop her up against his chest. As she drew an indignant
breath, he anticipated her objections.
“Start wiggling around, I’ll drop you flat.”
Patrice shut her mouth, considering silence the better part of valor. Her arms circled his neck demurely as she pointedly ignored the quirk of his smile. Then she felt him stiffen as she snuggled in contentedly, her head upon his shoulder. And she heard him exhale in a long, shaky gust. The evidence of his distress made hers fade. She’d shaken up the staid and distant Reeve Garrett. There for just a moment, she’d seen an answering desire in his eyes, naked, vulnerable, excitingly raw. But he’d withdrawn behind the stoic facade he wore so well before she could pursue it. But it was there. She knew it now. He wanted her. That fact warmed through her like a smooth sip of bourbon.
Then came the bittersweet chaser; there was nothing either of them could do about it.
But for the moment, she could enjoy it.
As they neared the house, with its noisy revelry still going strong, Patrice was pulled from the dreamy delight of being held and coddled by a harsh, intruding voice.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing with my sister?”
Reeve came to a stop, making no attempt to avoid Deacon’s swift approach. Nor did he release Patrice in guilty haste.
Seeing that her brother was about to make the same ill-conceived leap to judgment that Reeve had earlier, Patrice hissed, “Reeve, put me down. Let me handle this.”
He hesitated just long enough to let her know he was doing it because she asked, not because he felt
he had to. Then, carefully, he eased her down, not relinquishing his support.
Deacon jerked to a halt, his gaze doing a quick assessment of his sister’s appearance. His stare lifted slowly, dark, violent consequences glittering in his steely eyes.
To forestall the blow up to come, Patrice reached out her arms to her brother, and suspiciously, he took a step forward to intercept her.
“Oh, Deacon,” she gushed. “I declare, I did the silliest thing. Tyler and I went walking down in the garden sharing news of Starla. I told him I wanted to take in more air so he went back to the house. Somehow, I managed to trip on the bricks and I fell and tore this beautiful dress Mama made for me. She’s going to be so upset with me.”
Deacon listened with no visible change of expression. Then his skewering stare went to Reeve. “Where does Garrett come in?”
“I hurt my leg. Thank goodness he heard me cry out. I made him carry me up here so I could find you. Could you help me upstairs before anyone sees me? I look such a fright, I’d just up and die if anyone noticed.”
Deacon scowled. She sounded calm, though a bit scattered in her emphasis on female vanity. Perhaps she told the truth. Garrett gave nothing away. Still, the two of them, alone in the night, Patrice returning in a tattered gown, wearing Garrett’s coat, clutched in the arms of their enemy. Perhaps she wasn’t telling him everything.
Patrice chose that moment to utter a fragile moan, her body going limp enough to alarm him. Deacon secured her in the circle of his embrace as she lolled against him, seemingly dizzy and disoriented.
“Deacon, I simply must lie down,” she murmured weakly.
“Do you want me to get Mother?”
“No. No, don’t spoil her evening. I just feel a little faint, is all. Could you take me up to my room?”
Bred to be a gentleman, Deacon wouldn’t think to deny the request. For the time being, the threat of Reeve Garrett was forgotten as he lifted her into his arms.
Patrice twisted to give Reeve a small smile before nestling her head trustingly upon her brother’s shoulder.
I told you I could do it.
The receptive comfort of her tester bed was heaven. Deacon had no bedside manner. He didn’t fluff her pillows or turn down the counterpane. He stood, eyes narrowed, waiting for her to ask for anything she needed.
Patrice needed to be alone.
“How bad is it?” He nodded to the crude wrap peeping through the rent in her skirt.
“Just a scrape.” The understatement insured Deacon wouldn’t linger. Or call their mother up to fuss over her. “It aches. A reminder to watch where I’m going.” She smiled in chagrin. He didn’t respond to it.
“Garrett—”
“Brought me up to the house. Nothing else. Can you interrogate me later? I’m suddenly very weary.”
He didn’t say anything for several seconds, nor did his suspicions ease. Finally, he said, “I worry about you, Patrice.”
She smiled, attempting to lighten his somber expression.
“That’s nice to hear. You used to consider me a nuisance and pretended I didn’t exist.”
“You were a nuisance. I’m not sure what you are now, but I don’t want to see you get hurt. Or disgrace the family.”
“I’m sorry if being clumsy has disgraced me in your eyes.”
He ignored her wry retort to say, “You know what I mean, Patrice. And you know who I’m talking about.”
With a dismissing harrumph, she tossed onto her side, presenting her brother with her back. “Your faith in my good judgment is heartwarming.”
Deacon loitered a moment longer, feeling he should say more to soothe her pique, not knowing what words would perform that miracle. In the end, he slipped out quietly, closing the door.
And Patrice drew Reeve’s coat more tightly around her, staring into the dim shadows of the room, trying to deny that her brother had reason to worry.
The memorial service for Pride County’s missing and dead drew in the sorrowful, filling the whitewashed church’s pews and aisles to overflowing. It was the first step in moving on with lives gone stagnant during the war years. But attitudes were no easier to set aside than heartbreak, and when Reeve Garrett walked up the aisle the mood shifted in a furious tide from solemn reverence to a dangerous undercurrent of hostility.
As if oblivious to the stir he caused, Reeve slid into the pew next to the squire. The Sinclairs followed, Hannah stopping to usher Patrice in first despite Deacon’s frown of objection to his sister settling in beside the subject of everyone’s ire.
With hands folded primly on her lap, Patrice exuded an air of quiet reflection. Her head bowed, eyes lowered, she seemed immune to the stares and whispers around her. But she heard them, and those
properly knotted fingers began to clench.
“How can she sit there next to the man who murdered her fiancé?”
“Why doesn’t she swoon or demand he leave?”
“I heard tell they were living under the same roof together! Imagine that! Avery Sinclair must be rolling in his grave. He’d never allow such a thing.”
“How dare he show his face in here! We should take a horsewhip to him!”
Then, a soft, sinister suggestion:
“We should hang him.”
A chill of outrage coursed through Patrice. Such sentiments didn’t belong in church. Hate had no place beneath God’s roof.
She canted a quick look up at him, but his immobile features gave nothing away as he sat straight and tall, staring over the heads of their murmuring neighbors. He didn’t appear bothered by the threats, by the grumbles. So, why was she? They were feelings she should echo if she were a true Southerner and loyal to the ones she’d lost. Didn’t she despise him for what he’d done, for taking part in the destruction of their way of life? Didn’t she believe he should be punished for standing against his neighbors, his friends … his family? Wasn’t she equally irate at the thought of him trying to insinuated himself back into their good graces? It was too late to say he was sorry … but then, he’d never done that, had he? He’d never made a statement of apology or remorse.
So, then, weren’t these people rightful in their anger, in their sense of insult that he should intrude upon their sorrow, his very presence at this memorial a mockery of their pain? And hers? Those around her had lost fathers, sons, husbands, and
brothers. She’d lost her father and fiancé. Thinking of them brought a huge hollow of hurt and longing; to see them again, to hear their voices, to feel the comfort of them close by. The same ache of separation weighed heavily in each expression of those gathered around her today, in all but Reeve’s. Resentment simmered as she studied his emotionless facade.
Marriage to Jonah would have given her stability and the joy of a lifelong companion and friend who was completely devoted to her. And now … now she had nothing, no prospects, no provider; she was a burden upon her brother and a symbol of pity to her friends. She was a widow to the South, ever draped in emotional sackcloth, held up to the scrutiny of those around her who would forever gauge the strength and sincerity of her mourning. A frivolous belle with milky skin and crowded social calendar now reduced to somber sighs and lonely nights. How much more isolated could the grave be when compared to her rigid role of self-denial. Her father and Jonah Glendower had lost their lives, but she had lost her right to happiness, her right to love.
Because the only man who could bring her both things was the same man responsible for her solitude.
Horsewhipping Reeve Garrett wouldn’t bring back those they’d lost, wouldn’t restore the glory of the South. But it would give them all a chance to strike back against the unfair burden of defeat, a means to vent their frustration and pain. And in the darkness of her heart, she blamed him, just as they did, and because of that darkness, she, too, could relish the thought of that lash falling upon the source of their misery.
She sat up straight and proud, placing an invisible wall between her and the target of all their scorn. Her eyes glimmered with anguish and determination. The unexpected weight of her brother’s hand between her squared shoulder blades startled at first, then strengthened her pose of righteous anger. Someone should pay for Jonah, for her father, for all the rest.
Wasn’t Reeve responsible for Jonah by his choice of uniform, by his presence at his execution, by his failure to repent?
Then, came a penetrating whisper from the shadows of her being: Wasn’t she as much to blame for sending him to his death?
The magnitude of that secret shame multiplied as the reverend began his moving eulogy. As he listed the names of those soldiers who’d paid the ultimate price for Southern pride, a wail rose from Madeline Gurney, whose sons, twenty-year-old Titus, seventeen-year-old Jeffries, and fifteen-year-old Matthew, who’d yet to shave his first whisker, were among the fallen in Atlanta. Mary Malone and her young daughter-in-law sobbed for the sake of three-year-old Justin, who would never know his father. Captain Tom Drury gulped back his grief and dried his eyes with his one good arm as his son’s name was mentioned as a hero under Chalmers. Then came a heartfelt prayer for twins Carey and Connor Wellington, who’d never seen battle. They’d both wasted away with dysentery before ever hearing a shot fired.
By the time the reverend came to Avery Sinclair, the church walls rang with lamentations for those names called before his. While Hannah had the comfort of Deacon’s embrace, Patrice sat in stony
silence, alone and lost upon the sorrowful sea.
Closing her eyes, she could visualize her father’s face, the lean, hard angles so like her brother’s. The authoritative sound of his voice as he directed the workers in the field pealed through her memory like distant thunder. Then there were the rare times, the treasured times, of them holding hands as a family while grace was said at the table, of catching her mother and father in a tender tangle of arms and lips, of Avery teaching young Deacon to wield a saber with agile aggression, his lessons firm yet patient. Of him taking her up on his great white gelding to ride in the safe circle of his arms as he surveyed the new hemp crop. Then, she could hear once again, the distraught sobs her mother tried to muffle in her bed at night after news came of his death. A huge wad of emotion lodged beneath her breastbone, an ever-tightening fist about her heart. Oh, Lord, how were they going to go on without his strong hand upon them all? Tears she was unaware of shedding dotted the front of her charcoal-colored gown, but no sound escaped her.
She should have pulled away from the warm clasp of Reeve’s hand over hers. She should have refused to take comfort from such a source. Yet, when she stuck her fingers between his, twisting them together, the sense of isolation left her, replaced by the intimate pang of kindred spirits caught up in the same sorrow. She shifted their entwined hands to the pew seat between them, covering their intermingling with the fabric of her skirt. Perhaps her caution lessened the sweetness of the gesture, but Reeve didn’t withdraw it. For the next name mentioned was Jonah Glendower and his big hand convulsed with near bone-crushing power
even as his features betrayed no sign of his internal distress. A privately shared regret, just between the two of them who loved Jonah most. Then, when the next name was read, Reeve relaxed his hand, his fingers slipping free of her grasp. And Patrice mourned the loss.
In the end, the farewell service helped no one relieve the frustration and grief. It only bound the community closer together in its loss and strengthened its animosity toward the target of their anger. Reeve Garrett had come home, their loved ones hadn’t. And there should be some way to rectify that irony.
After the final prayer, when reddened eyes were dried and comforting arms supported family, friends, and neighbors, the congregation rose. And to a one, they stood, glaring, silent, waiting for Reeve to precede them out of the church.