His
grin became true. “Smart girl.”
There was a sound behind her of Lily
feeding another precious log into the fire; Rees thought she could hear the low
rush of water in the old iron kettle preparing to boil. Cups, she thought inanely, forcing herself to turn away and go to
the cupboard. We need cups. Theo’s
eyes followed her, bright green wolf eyes that made her want to shiver.
Inviting them in had been a mistake, but what choice had they?
“You didn’t answer my question,” she
reminded as she pulled down the only things of value left in the house: her
mother’s English painted china teacups. They’d been a gift from Papa, something
he’d brought with him from London when he’d married his little Southern belle.
When they’d arrived, two days before, they’d found the house stripped. It
hadn’t been tossed over like the Harwood place: the door had still been neatly
closed on its hinges, the floors intact, the barest of domestic necessities
lingering in the kitchen. The sturdy furniture made here in town was all still
in place. But the finer pieces – the settee, the brass bedframe, matching brass
oil lamps – were gone, gaps in the dust marking their departure. The barn was
clean, but empty, all manner of tack and harness and buggy taken. No chickens,
no pigs. Which meant no eggs, and no bacon. The vegetable beds had been fallow
for two years now, because Mama had been good and cracked for twice as long as
that. Rees had done what little planting could be done without a plow. And
she’d been gone, married off to William…
“Question?” Liam asked, and like it
had the first moment he’d opened his mouth, his accent did strange, warming
things to her insides. Mama had always been weak-minded, timid, forever
frightened. But Papa had been a force. And he’d talked the way Liam did, at
least a little. “What we’re doing here?”
“Yes.” The kettle whistled and Rees folded
over a scrap of rag to grip the handle and lift it off the stove. When she
turned back to the table, she saw that Theo was on his feet, looking even
taller inside like this, and that Annabel had finally taken hold of sense and
was giving him a wide berth.
Liam’s face had changed; he looked
tired. “Actually,” he said, “it wasn’t so much a case of us wandering down your
road as meaning to come.” His smile became almost sympathetic, and strained.
“There was a rumor in town that you’d come home.”
Rees felt the blood leave her face.
“You were looking for me?”
“We were looking for someplace
safe.”
“And private,” Theo added.
“Rees,” Lily said with a little
gasp. “Oh, God…”
Not
again, she thought desperately. No,
no, no, no. She’d thought these two were different, that she was smarter
than she’d been before, that she would never allow…
She lifted the kettle, ready to slop
boiling water over both of them.
“You see, what I was hoping…” Liam
trailed off when he saw the way she was angling the kettle. “I beg of you not
to make tea,” he said, and something moved across his face that surprised her:
pain. “You’ll need to use the water–”
That was when she took note of the
way Theo’s hand was curled around Liam’s shoulder: supportive. And beneath the
dark roughspun of Liam’s shirt, there was…a stain. A stain she hadn’t noticed
before.
“-to sterilize the needle,” he said.
Then she saw the blood. Thin rivers
of it crossing down his wrist and across his hand, plunking down onto the
table. One. Two. Three…
“You’re hurt,” Rees said, going numb
with shock.
“Can you stitch him up?” Theo asked,
and when Rees lifted a glance to him, she saw the fear behind the fierceness in
his green eyes.
She waited, because she felt like
she ought to, but she didn’t have to think about it. “Yes.”
Very intriguing! Can't wait to read more. Love the picture of the grass. So peaceful.
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