Where Love Runs Free (Tales from the Upcountry) (13 page)

The wind howled around Ben’s
ears as he lay on the wet grass, snuggled next to Mighty Wind’s warm body. He stroked
the velvety fur, marveling at its sleek softness. The stallion neighed gently
and twitched, as if shooing away an irritating fly. “Sleep, my friend,” Ben
said, kissing the place he petted. “It’s time to sleep.” The long, bushy tail
swung side to side, swiping Ben across the mouth, making him laugh. “Yes, I
know. I’ll hush.”

Ben had never known Mighty
Wind to lie down and rest for this long, especially out in the open field. But
for some reason it didn’t seem strange. What better place to sleep than on a
carpet of dewy grass blanketed by a canopy of bright stars with the wind
singing its eerie tune? The long limbs of the oak trees swayed and danced from
one side to the other, rustling their leaves like soft, lilting tambourines.
Closing his eyes, Ben draped his arm across the stallion’s belly and tried to
sleep, but the singing of the wind kept him awake. It seemed to cry, “Angelina,
Angelina, Angelina . . .”

“I’m here,” a voice answered,
over and over. It was soft and gentle at first and then evolved into a deep,
evil growl. Ben looked behind him and saw something dark approaching in the
distance. He strained his eyes to see, and after a few moments, made out the
silhouette of Edward in his black top hat walking toward him with long, lanky
strides and smacking a riding crop into his leather glove. The black mountain
lion strode next to him like a domestic pet, purring in its mysterious way and
occasionally pulling its lips back to reveal a set of white fangs.

Ben tried to rise, but a
sharp pain ripped through his right side, and his leg wouldn’t move. “Mighty
Wind,” he whispered, nudging the horse with his knee, but it just neighed in
response, having drifted into a long, deep slumber. “Mighty Wind!” Ben yelled.
“Get up!”

In a few moments, Edward would
be upon them. Ben tried to rise again, holding his side, but the pain was too
great. Suddenly, the sting of the riding crop lashed across the back of his leg
and the heat of the
klandagi’s
fang sunk deep into his neck.

“Ben—Ben, it’s all right.” Angelina laid a cool, wet cloth
across Ben’s forehead and gently guided his head to the pillow. “It’s a dream.
Just a dream.”

He sunk back down into the bed covers and muttered, “Mighty
Wind, Mighty Wind—”

“Yes,” Angelina said, “I know.”

Jessie slipped into the room, carrying a silver tray of hot
tea and dry toast with butter. “He awake?”

“Barely,” Angelina replied. “Doc says he’ll probably be like
this for a couple of days. Says he’s got two broken ribs, and that nasty cut on
his leg isn’t helping.”

Jessie sat the tray on the
bureau and squeezed a wedge of lemon into the pink flowered tea cup. “Here,”
she said, stirring a sugar cube into the hot liquid and offering it to
Angelina. “Drink this.”

Angelina turned away as a
wave of nausea swept over her. “I can’t drink anything, Jessie.”

“You need something on your
stomach. You’re gonna make yourself sick over this.”

“I don’t care about me,”
Angelina said as she reached for Ben’s fingers, caressing them one by one. They
were long and muscular and calloused in just the right places.

“Guess there’s no way he’s
gonna be able to run the Challenge now.” Jessie slumped into a chair next to
Angelina. “Even if we were to find him another horse, there isn’t time. And
that wound is terrible.”

Angelina stared at his
bandaged side, her heart breaking for him. “I never wanted him to run the
Challenge—I couldn’t bear the thought of him losing and having to go away from
here,” she said, her voice shaking. “But I never wanted anything like this to
happen.”

“None of us did.”

“All I wanted was for him to
stay here, at Fairington.”

“Sometimes what we want isn’t
what’s best. Keeping a man like Ben at Fairington would be like caging up a
wild animal, like that mountain lion, expecting him to be content.” Jessie
sighed as she squeezed Angelina’s hand. “You and I both know, it’ll crush him
something awful if he doesn’t get that land back.”

 “Yes,” Angelina murmured as
she stared at the beauty of Ben’s face, hearing her sister say the words she
had always known down deep in her heart. “That’s why I’ve decided—I’m gonna
have to scrape up the money and buy it from Edward before he sells it to
someone else. I’ve thought about it long and hard, Jessie, and I know it’s
what’s right.”

“And what makes you think
he’ll sell it to you after what you’ve done?”

“I don’t know,” Angelina
said, shrugging her shoulders. “But I’ll find a way—somehow.”

“The Lord’ll show us what to
do,” Jessie said. “He always does.”

Angelina winced, wondering
how on earth the Lord was going to fix this situation. Ben groaned in his sleep
again, reminding her that it all seemed utterly hopeless. “Oh, Jessie, why’d
this have to happen?” she wailed, her voice breaking.

“I don’t know, sweetie.”
Jessie stroked Angelina’s curls and rubbed her back with a long, even motion.
“But he’ll get through it. He’s gotten through a lot worse. Losing his daddy
and mama—his home.”

Angelina sniffed, wiping away
her tears. “He hasn’t lost me, and he never will.”

“You sure about that?”

“Jessie—”

“Well,” she said, wrapping an
arm around Angelina’s shoulder, “you always seem to be breaking his heart.”

“I don’t mean to, you know
that.” Angelina shot her sister a harsh look. She never liked it when she got a
scolding from Jessie, no matter how subtle. “It’s that he can be so, I don’t
know—
stubborn
.” Jessie snickered and gave Angelina a sly look in return.
“What?” Angelina asked.

“You remember the first day
we met him? That day Daddy took us all into town, and he was in Davis Supply
with his mama—looking all raggedy?”

“He’d been riding all night
in the rain, that’s why,” Angelina answered, caressing his fingers again, one
by one, like she was buffing a set of antique silver.

“You told him he looked like
a heathen.”

“I did not,” she said,
glaring at Jessie.

“You told him he looked like
a ‘wild animal heathen,’ if I recall, and you didn’t want him ‘touching your
new dress with his filthy hands.’” Jessie cocked her head in a know-it-all way
that made her seem like the older, smarter sister. Angelina never had liked
that look.

“I didn’t really say
heathen
did I?”

“You don’t remember Mama
taking a strap to you when we got home?”

Angelina closed her eyes
tight, unable to block the memory of her mother correcting her attitude toward
the natives—an attitude she had learned firsthand from her daddy. It was a hard
thing to admit about her father, and something she had never confessed out loud,
and never planned to either. At the time, she thought her mama’s discipline was
out of respect for Tom, but had since realized it was for a different
reason—that kind of behavior was plain wrong and always would be. Her mama was
right to give her a whipping that day.

Angelina stroked the inside
of Ben’s palm, wishing she could take back every mean word she had ever said to
him. A sob threatened to erupt from her deep inside her heart, but she
suppressed it, allowing only a single tear to roll down the bridge of her nose
and drip onto her hand. “He knows I didn’t mean it. Right, Jessie?”

The door swung open and Ella
breezed in carrying a pewter platter of piping hot cinnamon sugar cookies. “You
girls need to have a little somethin’ more with your tea than a piece of dry
toast. Somethin’ buttery and sweet’ll do the two of you good.” She set the
platter next to the tea tray and buzzed about the room like a bee, as she often
did. “Mr. Ben doin’ all right?”

“He keeps calling for Mighty
Wind,” Angelina answered.

“Oh, bless him,” Ella said,
shaking her head with sorrow. She fluffed his pillow, and he moaned as she
adjusted the blanket over his torso.

“Stop it,” Angelina
protested. “You’re hurting him.”

But she ignored Angelina and
went on with her fluffing and adjusting. “He don’t need y’all breathin’ his air
so close,” Ella said, shoving Angelina away from the bed for a moment. “Man’s
gotta get plenty of sleep and fresh breeze.” She patted the blanket down tight
over Ben’s feet and bustled to the window, raising the window sash high. A gentle
breeze permeated the room, bringing with it a fresh scent of lemon and violets.

Angelina thought it odd to
see the old, green tapestry curtains billowing toward them like a giant ball
gown waltzing across the floor. She hadn’t seen anyone in this bed since her
mother got sick years ago and her daddy took this as his room. Mama fondly
referred to it as the French Room, since it was decorated in the Louis XIV
style, from top to bottom. The walls were a soft, forest green with gold
fleur-de-lis bordering the crown molding and stamped in a striped pattern down
to the baseboards. The bedcovers matched perfectly, including an assortment of
pale green quilted silk pillows and a duvet with gold and frosty pink rosettes
forming a checkerboard pattern. The bed was a white wrought iron and the
dresser and vanity were hand painted with flowers and leaves trimmed in gold.
Even the pictures on the walls were paintings of pink roses bordered with pale
green linen mats and gilded frames. It was one of the loveliest rooms in the
house and embodied the femininity of her mother that had so often been bottled
up due to living on a horse farm.

Angelina gazed at the dark
beauty of Ben sleeping in such a grand bed. How odd it was to have a man like
him in this room! And yet, it seemed to be the most appropriate place in the
word for him to lay his head. Angelina almost smiled as she wondered what he
would say if he could see himself sleeping away like a French monarch with a
host of women waiting on him.

“Knock, knock.” A meek voice accompanied
a gentle rapping on the door. Isabella peeked inside, flashing one of her
dainty smiles.

“Oh, Miss Isabella, you come
on in,” Ella fussed. “Miss Angelina, Miss Jessie—Miss Isabella came by a few
minutes ago and brought us some of Clara’s chocolate pound cake with banana
cream filling.”

“It’s one of Ben’s
favorites,” Isabella responded proudly. She stepped inside the room, swishing her
pale pink and green cotton damask dress with gold trim and lace.

“Sounds wonderful,” Jessie
piped up, swallowing a bite of one of Ella’s sugar cookies. “Please tell her
thank you for us.”

“Well, I don’t think Ben’ll
be eating any chocolate cake with filling any time soon,” Angelina snapped,
thinking it ludicrous that Isabella would even think of such a thing at a time
like this. “But I’m sure Tom and the boys will eat it.”

“Oh, well,” Isabella said,
her voice laced with disappointment. “I thought he might like a bite.”

“I’ll save him a piece and
put it in the ice box,” Ella said, giving Angelina one of her fake smiles.
“How’s that?”

Isabella nodded and cast a
loving glance toward Ben. “He looks better now.”

“He is better,” Angelina
said, wishing Ella hadn’t let this girl in her house. “Dr. Parker says he’ll be
fine in no time.”

Isabella drew close and
traced the edge of his shoulder with her index finger. “When I think of Mighty
Wind and how much he meant to him—that horse was the only family he had.” She
sniffed and dabbed her eyes with a lace handkerchief. “Daddy says when he gets
better, he can come over to Middleton and pick out any stallion he wants, the
best there is. Daddy’s gonna offer him the foreman job too—that is, if you
don’t mind,” Isabella said, staring at Angelina with an apologetic look. “Since
he can’t run the Challenge now, Daddy says he’ll help him get his old farm back
by paying Edward’s price. Then maybe Ben can buy it back over time. He says if
it’s fixed up just right, it could make a real nice horse farm one day.”

“Why on earth would Isaac do
all that for Ben?” Jessie asked, casting a look in Angelina’s direction.

Isabella’s face flushed beet
red as she stammered over her words. “Well, Daddy likes him. You may not know,
but we’ve got Cherokee blood running through us, from way back. And besides,
Ben’s the best horseman in this whole county, maybe even in the whole state.
We’d be fortunate indeed to have a man like Ben at Middleton—at least until he
gets his own place set up.”

A heavy silence filled the
room as Angelina stared at Isabella’s innocent expression, feeling a shroud of
jealousy wrap tightly around her heart. It was as if frail and fragile Isabella
Richardson and all of her Charleston finery had punched Angelina hard in the
stomach, knocking every ounce of breath out of her. Suddenly, the sweet, dainty
smile looked cold and calculated, sensing an imminent victory.

 “Why don’t you set yourself
down in Miss Angelina’s chair and read to Mr. Ben,” Ella interrupted, pulling
Angelina to her feet. “My mama always said readin’ was one of the best ways to
sooth the mind when the body’s recoverin’ from hurt.” She grabbed a
leather-bound Bible from the nightstand and handed it to Isabella. “Here. You
can start with the book of John. But make sure you read it slow and with
feelin’.” She then nodded to Angelina and said, “And you and Jessie can help me
down in the kitchen. Clarissa’s busy with those children of hers, and I need to
get those tomatoes put up.” Angelina tried to move, but the realization that
Ben might soon be living a new life at Middleton Farm sent a paralyzing chill
over her. “Angel?” Ella asked. “You gonna come help?”