Seduced (8 page)

“I don't know what to do,” she whispered, unable to look at her sister.

“I do.” Annie grabbed her hands. “I know. For once, I will make the plan. We’ll leave.”

“We have no money,” Melody said. “We’ve sold everything of value.”

“Except the horses.”

Melody took a deep, shuddering breath. They’d gone to incredible lengths to keep the stallion and two mares from being conscripted or killed for food. They were the legacy passed down from her mother's family. They were the basis of her family's barn, the best of the stock.

“Lilly will fetch us the most money,” Annie said.

“Lilly was Mama's favorite.”

“We need money, Melody. This is no time for sentiment.”

Of course not. The time for sentiment was years ago. She would sell the horse.

“Where will we go?” Melody asked.

“Denver.”

“Opium dens and whore houses? Sounds lovely.”

Annie sighed, never fond of Melody’s sarcasm when it was a knife wielded against her. “If you had all the money in the world, where would you go?”

“Wherever you wanted.”

“Melody—”

“What do you want me to say, Annie? I understand you are trying to make our freedom a great adventure, but the only place I want to be is back on the farm with our family. That’s what I want. Home. Everything else is just surviving.”

“Jimmy is dead.” She said it like that should bring her joy. Comfort. But it didn’t.

“Yes, well, that makes surviving more likely, doesn’t it?” Melody rolled over. “Your plan is sound. We'll leave for Denver in the morning.”

Cole woke up before dawn and quietly stepped out of the house. The June morning was cool and damp. He pulled his hat down low over his ears and turned up the collar on his coat. To his surprise, Melody and Annie were already awake and busy in the clearing.

It appeared they were packing up their horses.

Side by side, the resemblance between them was small. Melody was taller, her body more sturdy, though both women were painfully thin. Annie’s features were more refined, Melody’s lush. Her eyes wider, her lips fuller.

Annie’s brown hair reminded him of his sister’s, rather untamable.

Melody’s hair was the bright gold of a cavalry braid.

“You’re up early,” he said, startling both of them. They wore most of their clothing; he could see the hems of multiple dresses at the top of Melody's boots.

“Are you leaving?” he asked, stunned at the thought. The widow looked pale and wan; that bruise on her face was worse this morning than it had been last night.

“That is our plan,” Annie said, her brown eyes focused and sharp behind her glasses.

“Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked.
Because it is decidedly unwise.

“We don't wish to burden you,” Annie said. Melody was eerily quiet, a shadow standing next to her sister.

“You’re no burden, I assure you. My brother needs care that I have no training to provide.”

“You keep the wound and bandages clean. Help him regain his strength. He is through the worst of it,” Annie said, sounding damnably reasonable.

“But there’s too much to be done here for me to care for him.”

The sisters shared a dubious look.

“I will pay you, of course,” he said.

That changed the nature of the sisters’ look.

“Mr. Smith—” Annie said.

“Please. Cole.”

“Cole. May I speak freely?”

The events of the past days, he would have thought, put them beyond drawing-room manners. “Please,” he said, playing along.

“We heard you last night, speaking to your brother about us.”

They heard him say he would have killed them
.

His skin prickled as his stomach fell to his boots. His eyes flew to Melody's, but she was seemingly engrossed in brushing her horse’s neck. “I'm sorry . . . I didn't intend for you to hear that.”

“Obviously,” Annie said. “But you can understand our reluctance to stay.”

“How much would you pay us to stay and care for your brother?” Melody asked, drawing her sister’s angry gaze. There was no sign in Melody of the young, merry hostess she'd been just the other night, or the wild-eyed Valkyrie standing over his brother to keep him safe, or even the soul-dead woman on the porch begging for just a glimpse of kindness. She was cold and distant, buried deep inside herself.

“Ten dollars a week,” he answered.

The amount was intended to make it impossible for them to turn it down, and neither of them could quite control the widening of their eyes.

“For how many weeks?” Melody asked.

“Until he doesn't need you any longer, I imagine.”

“That's at least two weeks. Perhaps more,” Melody said.

Annie was scowling harder at Melody; apparently this was not what the sisters had decided.

“What are you doing?” Annie asked under her breath.

“Earning money so we don't have to sell Lilly,” Melody answered.

“On my honor you are safe here,” he said to them, ignoring the deep irony of him saying those words to them. Nevertheless, he hoped to tip their doubts into faith.

“On your honor,” Melody scoffed, and he let the insult roll off his shoulders.

“If it would put your mind at ease I will camp out of the cabin,” he said. “And if I may say, Melody, you are in no shape to ride. You look ready to collapse.”

She blushed and pressed her hand to the bruise as if she’d forgotten. Annie came up to stand beside her, her arm around her shoulders.

“My sister and I need to discuss this,” Annie said to him.

“Of course.” He gave them a little bow, a small relic from the drawing rooms and parlors of his past life, and headed to the barn.

There was a lot of work to do around the property, far more than just daily chores. The barn needed to be bigger. They needed a smokehouse and chicken coop. He needed to investigate these seeps of Steven's and this clearing he claimed would be good for apples.

Before the war, Cole had convinced Father to graft the York Imperial apples with Newtown Pippins, and the cider had been improving. He’d been selling it to the tavern for a handsome profit. Mother had been scandalized, but secretly pleased, and Steven had teased all of them for their merchant instincts.

He closed his eyes against the sharp, bitter pain of those memories. But there were more behind them.

His father walking through the hedgerows at dawn in his tall boots, two dogs at his side, Gavin sprinting ahead.

Samantha weaving crowns of apple blossoms.

Mother’s pie.

Oh God. I can’t bear it.

If he could bash those memories out of his head, he'd do it to save himself the pain of remembering.

There would be no orchard on this land. Steven had the right idea; they would turn their efforts to oil, because it reminded them not at all of home. He did not have the soul for farming anymore.

Those memories would be starved to death behind stones. He'd give them no air. No room. And when they died, he'd be free again.

Carefully, he gathered warm eggs from beneath disgruntled chickens and tucked them into the pockets of his coat.

When he imagined enough time had passed and the work of the day could no longer be put off, he left the barn and found the women still in conversation beside their horses.

“We've decided that we will stay,” Annie said when he was close. “Until Steven no longer needs care, and then we would be obliged if you could see us safely to Denver. We will pay you of course—”

“You will not. I will pay you for saving my brother's life at great risk to your own.” He met Melody's gaze, steely and distant. Did she not understand what she'd done for him? What was owed to her? “You speak of kindness, but I can never repay yours. I’m in your debt.”

Melody turned away from his gaze. It was obvious Melody didn’t trust him; neither of them did.

And he couldn’t convince her. Whatever words she needed he didn’t have. He had work and memories and four eggs.

“I have gathered breakfast.” He patted his pockets. “Come in when you’re ready.”

He crossed the clearing, his fingers catching the blossoms of the flowers as he walked by, the petals the very same velvet texture of his old dog’s ears. He closed his fist around the next blossom and stripped every petal from the stem.

If only memories were so easily destroyed.

ANNIE SPENT THE day being angry and Melody knew well enough to leave her to her sulk. She would get over it in time and see that the plan to stay here and earn money was far wiser than leaving for Denver with nothing.

And they could keep Lilly for just a little while longer.

But until Annie came to see that Melody was right, she huffed around the cabin.

“I think you two are fighting,” Steven said when he woke up, groggy and weak.

“You don't fight with your brother?” Melody asked.

“We used to. But with our fists. Far more civilized.”

“Sadly, that is not an option for us,” Annie said with a look over her shoulder at Melody that declared she was ready to try.

“My sister was good at the silent treatment,” Steven said, closing his eyes as Annie unwound the bandages at his waist. “Once she ignored Cole for a whole month.”

“He must have done something awful,” Annie murmured, checking the pink wound.

“I don’t remember.” Steven’s voice was dry and cracked. “I wish I could.”

Melody understood. So many of the good memories had been crowded out and bullied away by the bad memories.

Tired of the silent tensions in the cabin, Melody left to pick some of the wild onion she'd found behind the barn. Her head felt as if it floated above her body and her arms and legs were longer than they'd been yesterday. Strange.

As she walked past the flowers in front of the cabin, she stopped. How lush they were. A perfect carpet of soft blooms. Before she knew she was doing it, she waded into those flowers and lay down, the stems and leaves cracking under her weight, making a damp blanket between her and the dirt. The crushed blossoms perfumed the air, sweeter than any rose water she and Annie could make. Sweeter than any of the French perfume Daddy had bought for Mama before the war. Above her, the blooms bobbed against a bright blue sky. White clouds sailed past, castles of them, thick and dense and tall.

Look at that
, she thought, filled with a quiet wonder, a small trickle of peace, that grew and spread, eroding the walls of fear that she had lived with for so long. Tears burned behind her eyes but she blinked them away, not wanting to be blinded to any of this beauty.

I killed him
, she thought, unable to even think his name in this beautiful place in fear he would ruin it.
I won't have to suffer another moment of pain with that man.

“Melody?” It was Cole, standing over her with a string of trout over his shoulder. “Are you all right?”

How ridiculous to be found here like this, but she couldn’t be bothered to care.

I'm free.

“Did you fall?” He glanced over his shoulder, panicked. “Do you need your sister?”

“No,” she answered, smiling because she wanted to and not because she was terrified not to. “I'm fine.” She flung out her arms, her fingers brushing the soft flower heads, the green damp stems. A honeybee hummed around her head, landed on her finger and buzzed away.

“Melody,” he said, all stern concern.

She shook her head at him. “Don't,” she said. “I've been living terrified and small for years. But not right now. Right now, I am not scared at all.”

Do you understand
, she wanted to ask?
Do you understand how beautiful it is to lie here in the dirt and flowers and look at the sky?

Something happened under the skin of his face, something strange, as if the muscles holding his mouth in stern lines, keeping his eyes narrowed, they all just gave way and she saw for a moment all the fear he still lived with, the heavy weights of grief and regret.

“Do you remember what you were like before the war?” she asked.

He shook his head.

I’ve only remembered the worst of myself, tracing every moment of bad fortune back to some horrible deed in my past. But there was more to me. I'm sure there was.

The sun gave him a halo. And she had no illusions that he was an angel.

We are all just human
, she thought.
Trying to survive
.

She wished he would lie down in these flowers with her. He needed it.

“Come on, Melody,” he said, wrapping his hand around hers, his other hand at her waist as he pulled her up out of the grass and flowers. “You should be resting.”

Inside Annie clucked over her, their fight forgotten, and Melody was sent to bed.

In the morning they all talked about her head injury and told stories about soldiers they'd known who'd been hit in the head and couldn't remember their names, or could only sing instead of speak.

And she agreed with them. I was not myself, she said.

But she knew the truth.

That was the day she found herself again; like a diamond, hard and unbroken beneath all the rubble.

MELODY SLEPT. WOKE up and slept all day and the night again. She woke up the following morning to the roar of her stomach and the smell of her body and decided to make biscuits. A lot of them. And then it was time to do some wash. And take a bath.

Steven slept as well, his back turned to the otherwise empty room. After dressing, she grabbed the bucket and went out into the clearing for water. Only to be brought up short by the sight of Cole, to the left of the barn, shirtless and shaving, looking into a mirror propped up in a tree.

His skin was surprisingly dark, stretched taut over thick muscles. He lifted his arms and the muscles in his belly clenched and released. He had hair on his chest and a thin line of it on his belly. He was lean, no fat on him.

There were no scars on his body. He turned away to pick something up from the ground and she saw his back was clear too.

She had not seen a man returned from the war quite so unscathed.

He must have caught sight of her because he grabbed the shirt hanging from a branch and pulled it over his head.