Always (14 page)

Chapter Nine

When Emily’s senses returned, she lay flat on her back, staring up into a blurred likeness of Marcus Eby’s rodent face.
Oh no, I’ve gone to hell with Judas Priest,
she thought.

“Jumpin’ jay crimony! You all right, Emily?”

“Get away from her.”

Ross must have shoved Marcus aside because it was his fuzzy approximation of a welcome countenance that came next. “Emily, can you sit up?”

Not hell
, she thought groggily. In that moment, her heart swelled. If Ross was here, then she must have made it to heaven.

“Emily? Can you hear me?”

She squinted in an effort to focus. Poor Ross. Even with her fuzzy vision, he looked terrible. His right cheekbone was discolored and his left eye was puffy. Blood flowed from his nose and his mouth.

“Can you move?”

She felt his hand on her shoulder, and she nodded. “Yes.”

With his help, she pushed up onto her elbows. The back of her head throbbed, but she was relieved when the world swam back into focus.

John knelt in front of the sycamore where he’d taken that sucker punch at Ross, only now he was the one bent over double. Ross must have gotten in some good licks of his own after Arnie released him. As for Arnie, he now squatted by the side of the road, clutching at his throat and making retching sounds.

“She’s all right, isn’t she?” This was Marcus again, bouncing and weaving anxiously behind Ross’s shoulder. “Jumpin’ jay crimony! You told her to go on home. It isn’t our fault she didn’t’ listen.”

“Shut up and get out of here,” Ross said. “You’ll be lucky if her pa doesn’t take this to a constable.”

“Not our fault,” Marcus muttered, backing away.

Emily closed her eyes and bent her head. She felt like she’d been run over by a train, but it was worth it. She savored the sweet taste of victory as the three older boys grumbled and took their leave. John Butler must have gotten his breath back by then because he swore the air purple. He cursed Ross’s religion, his “hoor” mother, and warned Ross again to stay away from Johanna.

But it was over.

For today.

“You sure you’re all right, Em?”

Emily lifted her head to gaze into Ross’s concerned eyes. Forever and always.
Always…
The promises they’d made to each other the summer before sang in her mind, turning over time and again, precious and secret and special.

“Yeah,” she said, offering a loopy smile. “I’m all right, a little bump on the head, that’s all.”

Ross didn’t return her good humor. “When you get home, be sure to tell your ma what happened. Maybe have her take you to Doc Weaver to get checked.”

“But we’ll get in trouble for fighting.”

Ross dabbed the back of one sleeve to his bleeding mouth. He frowned at the fresh bloodstain. “All right, tell her that you fell, that you knocked your head, and that you came awake a few minutes later.”

“But I’m all right. Why tell her anything?”

“Because you were knocked out. You be sure to tell the doc that. He’ll tell your ma to watch you and make sure you don’t sleep the whole night through.”

“Why?”

“Never mind why. It’s just what they tell you to do.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

Emily watched as he stumbled a short distance away to the side of the road to sit. He clutched his side and his face was pale. John had done more than knock the wind out of him with that last punch. Worried, Emily pushed to her feet to follow. When she sat, she was careful to keep most of her weight off her aching tailbone.

She forced another smile. “Hey, but we sure showed them, didn’t we?”

When he looked at her, he wasn’t wearing the expression she hoped for. “Em, next time I tell you to go home,
go
the hell home
.”

“But it was three against one. I wouldn’t leave you like that.”

“You could have been hurt.”

“So could you.” She didn’t understand why he was scolding her.
Always.
Did he think that word didn’t have meaning just because she was a girl? If he expected her to run, then the promises they’d made to each other that day hadn’t meant anything after all. “If I was Karl, you wouldn’t say that. If I was Karl, you’d think I was chicken if I ran.”

“You’re not Karl.”

“But I’m your friend, and friends don’t—” Emily stopped as Ross turned his face away. She hadn’t missed his grimace when he’d probed his ribs. “Maybe you should go see Doc Weaver yourself.”

“No, it’s not broken. It’s just cracked.”

“What’s cracked?”

“My rib. Hurts, but it’ll be all right if I take it easy.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged, still not looking at her.

Emily stared at him. He’d never spoken much of his life before coming to Lancaster. His father had deserted him and his mother when he was eight, then his mother had died of galloping consumption when he was eleven. That was all Emily knew. Now, she wondered what sort of life he’d led in order to know the difference between a broken rib and a cracked one.

“My mother wasn’t a whore,” he mumbled as if reading the direction of her thoughts. His head was still bent, his face averted, his hair hanging in his eyes, hiding whatever emotions might be revealed there.

“Of course she wasn’t.”

He touched the back of his sleeve to his mouth again. Seeing it come away again wet with blood, Emily pulled a handkerchief from the pocket of her skirt. “Here.”

Ross accepted it with a rueful glance. “I hate that son of a bitch.”

“He hates you, too. Maybe you ought to stay out of his way.”

“I’d stay out of his way if he’d stay out of mine.”

If you’d stay away from Johanna, John would get tired of picking on you and leave you alone.
Emily wanted to say it, but she didn’t. Ross wouldn’t heed her advice. In fact, he’d resent her for it. He was already drawn to Johanna like a moth to flame, and now that he’d been warned to stay away from her, that attraction was bound to grow worse.

For Emily, the sweet taste of victory had gone sour. They sat in silence, Emily wishing for blue eyes, blond ringlets, and plump breasts, Ross sullenly wiping the blood from his face. Finally, Emily spoke. “Can you walk?”

He glanced at her, irritated, and she was relieved to see it. Whatever hurts he’d suffered in the past had been tucked back away where they belonged. “Of course I can walk. What kind of question is that?”

“We’d best get home.” She stood and retrieved her fallen lunch pail and lesson book. “I doubt you’ll be much use on the farm.”

 Ross winced as he stood. “I’ll catch the devil for fighting again.”

And it won’t be the last time
, Emily thought grimly as they set out again toward the Kissing Bridge. She knew that, where John Butler and Johanna Davenport and Ross were concerned, things were bound to get a whole lot worse before they got better.

*

1865

“Pardon me, Miss.”

Emily’s thoughts returned to the present as a portly gentleman brushed by her on the sidewalk. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been standing here, woolgathering, staring blankly at the spot where the Davenports’ brougham had been parked.

Emily closed her eyes. What good could come of all this dredging up of the past? Ross would soon marry Johanna. He would gain all he’d ever aspired to. He would have a newspaper career, money, and a place of respect among the upper echelons of local society. Emily would do well to take a lesson from his pragmatic example. There was nothing she could do to change the past. She should concentrate on her own goals. Business. Deadlines.

Squaring her shoulders, she turned to cross the busy city street.

Chapter Ten

It was on a hot, lazy Saturday afternoon, over a week after Ross had caught her snooping through the
Herald
’s print orders, that Emily found herself trudging along the dusty road to the old Hockstetter place. She wasn’t looking forward to the unpleasant task she’d set for herself today.

Just ahead, the sandstone farmhouse with its familiar tangle of evergreens and weeping willows came into view. Set against a blanket of corn and wheat fields, the house, with its whitewashed bam and other outbuildings was hard to miss. It was the only dwelling for almost a half mile in all directions.

Pressing a gloved hand to her middle, she forced herself to take deep breaths to calm her nervous stomach. She didn’t like the idea of asking for money; she liked even less the idea of asking for money from Ross. Unfortunately, she was running out of time, and she could think of no other way to accomplish her goals. No reputable bank would grant her a loan, not without substantial assets to offer as collateral and certainly not for the purposes she had in mind. As she saw it, Ross wasn’t just her best hope, he was her only hope.

Releasing a splintered wooden latch on the front gate, Emily took the front walk to the porch steps. She was surprised to see eye-catching splashes of yellow marigolds, white and pink poppies, and rainbows of pansies along the front of the house. The late Mrs. Hockstetter’s rosebushes were trimmed back and prepared to bloom. The grass in the yard was cut, and there was nary a weed in sight. Even the porch looked as if it had taken on a recent coat of whitewash.

Business,
Emily reminded herself grimly as she climbed the steps to the front door. Flower gardens had nothing to do with why she was here. She had to keep her mind on business.

She rapped twice on the front door of the old house and waited. In her mind, she rehearsed her opening lines. She would bid Ross good day, he would invite her in, they would discuss the weather, and he would ask why she had come. Then she would make her brisk, very businesslike request for a loan. She would promise to make installment payments at a fair rate of interest.

Yes, that seemed reasonable.

Emily marked time for another minute or two before she realized Ross might not be home. But she’d spent half the night lying awake dreading this hideous, ignoble moment. How could he not be home?

It was then that she heard it, one muffled thwack followed by another and then another. It sounded like the familiar, steady beat of someone hard at work chopping wood.

Steeling her nerve again, Emily descended the wooden porch steps and rounded the corner of the house to the back. The startling sight that confronted her stopped her cold and erased every memorized opening line from her head.

With his back to her, Ross stood over a thick tree stump that served as a chopping block near the springhouse. Tall and magnificently broad-shouldered, shirtless and sweating in the early summer sun, he raised his ax to bring it whistling down into a section of cordwood, splitting it in half and sending it tumbling to the ground by his feet. Emily felt an embarrassing flush of heat wash over her as she watched him bend to pick up a second piece.

For a second, Emily considered fleeing before he had a chance to see her. To hell with all her mental rehearsals. The thought of facing him now, with her mouth gone all dry and her palms sweating buckets, was—

“Emily?”

He must have caught a glimpse of her. When he turned around, he appeared almost as surprised as she was. “I didn’t see you there.”

Even from where she stood, perhaps fifteen feet away, Emily saw a nasty pink and white slash of scar tissue below his collarbone. Her gaze dropped to fasten upon another scar, this one even worse, just below his rib cage.

Emily wasn’t a nurse, but she’d volunteered enough at the military hospital in Baltimore to know that if that Confederate
minie
ball had penetrated one or two inches to the left, his injury would have been fatal.

Since she’d returned home and discovered that the report of his death had been a mistake, she’d forced herself to forget the heart-numbing despair she’d felt upon reading her sister’s letter the year before. Now it came back to her with dreadful clarity.
Alma Brenner’s daughter Lorraine came by to tell us her Mama got a letter yesterday. Ross Gallagher was reported killed on the first day of fighting at Wilderness in Virginia.

Mere inches from death
, Emily thought, staring at that wretched scar. She had to take a deep breath before looking up.

His expression gave no indication that he sensed the direction of her thoughts. Quite the contrary. From the dry smile that curved his lips, it was apparent that he’d recovered from the surprise of discovering her in his backyard.

“So,” he drawled, “to what do I owe the honor of this unsolicited visit, Miss Winters?”

At his sarcasm, Emily stiffened. “There’s no need to be so formal. We’re not at the paper.”

“Oh?” Turning his back, he knocked the unsplit section of wood from the chopping block. Then he drove the head of his ax into the tree stump with such unnecessary force, it made Emily jump. She hadn’t considered that he might be angered by her attempts to keep him at arm’s length all these weeks. His next words left no doubt in her mind. “I was beginning to believe that you’d forgotten my first name.”

As he bent to gather an armful of firewood, Emily took advantage of his diverted attention to try to refortify her resolve. His antagonism wouldn’t make it any easier for her to humble herself and ask for a loan, but it sure helped to cure her maudlin mood. “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, as he moved toward an open shed at the back of the house.

Disappearing inside, he disposed of his bounty quite noisily before emerging again and facing her, hands on hips. “So, what brings you all the way out here, Em? What do you want?”

His question seemed scandalously double-edged, but only in her own mind, she reminded herself. She refused to notice how sweat glinted off smooth male muscle in the sunlight. “What makes you think I want something?”

“I’ve been persona non grata ever since you came home. Now you suddenly drop by for a visit. You obviously want something.”

“Maybe I came out to thank you for recommending me for the job at the paper.”

His eyebrows raised in smug amusement, but he said nothing.