Into the Woods (5 page)

"I am never moony eyed," he said calmly, regaining his composure with little apparent effort. In fact, he seemed to hold his head higher and his spine straighter. Proud. Self-assured. Haughty. "My tongue was not hanging out. And I do not drool."

"There was definitely drool," she countered with a touch of humor in her voice.

Amazingly enough, a moment later Declan Harper smiled and shook his head. His hard face softened as he broke into an unabashed grin, his dark eyes twinkling mischievously, and she could see a hint of the boy her grandmother had known. In that moment Matilda decided she liked him. A man who could laugh at himself was rare indeed.

"I will need several days, Mr. Harper."

She expected him to make a quick escape, his question answered, but he stayed beside her. "Fair enough, Miss Candy. You can call me Declan, if you like." He made the offer in a rather offhand manner, but she sensed it was an important gesture.

"All right. Declan." She liked the way the name rolled off her tongue, different and foreign and somehow tasty. "And you may call me Matilda."

He barely withheld a smile. "So tell me, Matilda. Do you think you can find that recipe for hard molasses candy?"

"You really want it?" she asked, genuinely surprised. "I thought that request was just a ruse to get me alone so you could ply me for information about love potions for your Miss Arrington."

He glanced at her sharply, studying, scrutinizing. Then he softened. "No. That candy was one of my few good childhood memories of this place. Hard molasses candy and your grandmother."

They walked a bit further, and still he didn't leave her side. He seemed quite content to walk with her, and she decided she didn't mind the company.

"If you have no other pleasant memories of Tanglewood," she asked, "then why are you here?"

He didn't answer the question. "All in good time, Matilda. All in good time," he said softly. "You're the only one I've told about my previous residence here. I hope you'll keep my secret."

"Mr.—Declan," she said, "I am the keeper of all of Tanglewood's secrets. I can surely keep yours."

He glanced at her and gave her a small smile. His eyes were so dark and deep, she had a feeling she'd never know all of his secrets. "Somehow I knew I could trust you."

As they reached the edge of town, he stopped. She stopped with him. "You have such a long way to walk. Can I give you a ride? I don't have a buggy, yet, but my horse can easily carry two."

She shook her head. "No, thank you. I don't care for horses, and they care for me even less."

He didn't believe her. She saw the skepticism and the question in his eyes, the subtle tightening of his lips. Did he think her refusal was a rejection of some sort? Yes, he did, she saw.

"Horses throw me," she explained, for some reason wanting Declan to know that she was not spurning him, knowing it was important. "Always. They simply don't like me, and therefore I don't like them. My refusal to ride seems perfectly reasonable to me," she added somewhat snippily, then turned toward home, presenting her back to Declan Harper. "But you can walk with me a while longer, if you'd like."

To her surprise, he did.

* * *

Declan couldn't remember the last time he'd talked to someone, anyone, this way. As they walked down the dirt road, he and Matilda discussed the recent lack of rainfall, her grandmother, and candy. His favorites and hers. He told her of his remodeling plans for the plantation house he'd bought, and when she asked, he told her about the first saloon he'd won and how his venture into the business world had begun. She seemed truly interested in it all.

They weren't far from town when he slipped out of his jacket and flung it over his shoulder. A moment later he loosened the top button of his confining shirt. He felt like he was breathing deep and clean for the first time in days. Weeks. Years, maybe.

"I can't believe you have five sisters," Matilda said, swinging her empty basket. A sly smile crept across her elfin face. "I wish I'd had five sisters. Or six. Or a dozen."

He laughed. "No, you don't. It's very daunting to live in a household with that many women. My life with five sisters and a widowed mother was a constant turmoil, and there was never enough money. For some reason women have a need to go from one disaster to another."

"Depends on the woman, I suppose," she argued.

Perhaps she was right. "So, you are an only child? Or are there brothers out there somewhere?"

Her smile faded. "I'm an only child. My mother wanted more children, but... it never happened."

She looked to be lost in thought, contemplative but not terribly sad. He didn't know what to say.

She shook off her brief bout of sober reflection and turned her attention to him again. "I can guess, from the tales of the way you built your fortune, what you have in mind for Tanglewood."

Was he ready to tell her everything? No. Not yet. "I have nothing in mind for Tanglewood," he said in a tone of reassurance. "It's simply time I settled down, and this town is as good a place as any."

She laughed at him, a bright, summery sound that seemed to seep through him. "You're much too young to retire, and much too impatient to think about settling down." She locked her eyes to his, briefly. "You don't want anyone to know you once lived here, which means you don't want them to know who you really are." Her smile faded, but her eyes still sparkled. "Why not?" she asked softly, as if she were questioning herself. He saw the answer on her face as it quickly came to her. "Declan Harper, what are you trying to prove?"

"I'm not trying to prove anything."

She shook her head. "Of course you are. You bought your big house and all that land, and I imagine soon you'll want the saloon and the general store and anything else you can get your hands on." She looked at him boldly and smiled. "Declan Harper, king of Tanglewood. And Vanessa Arrington is to be queen. Would you care to tell me why?"

Why argue with her? She'd seen right through him, with those witchy eyes. "Not really," he answered nonchalantly.

She narrowed her eyes and swung her basket as she continued to walk toward home. Her full brown skirt swished about her legs, as she took the longest strides of which she was capable. "That's all right, I can guess. You were an outcast, I suppose. Only an outcast would be so determined to come back and make himself... one of them. Not only to be one of them, but to lead them. And then to rub their noses in it, I imagine."

His heart lurched, just a little, but he didn't allow her words to disturb him for more than that single heartbeat. "You don't know—"

"Please don't tell me I don't know what it's like to be an outcast," she interrupted, her voice sharp. "Even before I was told that my grandmother was a witch, when I was living with my mother and father in Georgia and leading a fairly ordinary life, I knew I was different. Always on the outside looking in, wondering what the rest of you were thinking. Wondering why I always felt... strange. I was fourteen when I came here to live with my grandmother, ten tears ago, and I hadn't been here three days before I knew what had been missing from my life."

"Witchcraft?" he asked, almost afraid to say the word aloud.

She wasn't offended. In fact, she smiled. "Purpose, Mr. Harper," she said. "Purpose."

Purpose, he understood.

The tree-lined road was silent and deserted, but for the two of them. Here there were no plans to be executed, no calculations to be made as they passed in and out of the shade.

"Don't you mind that people call you a witch?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "No. Who knows? Maybe they're right."

"But..." He paused as he looked around him, at the deserted road and the deep woods on either side. "Don't you ever get lonely?"

"No," she answered quickly, her voice as light as the breeze through the trees. "I like my life. I enjoy living alone. I am free, I answer to no one." She cast a quick glance in his direction. "And if I ever get tired of living alone, I'll marry Ezra Cotter and have a dozen babies."

She said it with a smile, as if it were a joke, but Declan sensed there was some truth to her statement. "Who's Ezra Cotter?"

She swung her basket twice and contemplated a moment before answering. "Ezra has a general store in Jackson. Several times a year he visits to buy beauty creams and special oils and rose water for his store, and he always asks me to marry him while he's here."

Declan felt a strange sense of relief. He'd known dozens of merchants in his lifetime. He'd worked for them, bought them out, and competed with them. They were, for the most part, dull men. Every one he'd ever known had been middle-aged or older. Declan didn't count himself in the group, of course. He wasn't a mere shopkeeper; he was a shrewd businessman. Ezra Cotter was probably a quaint old man, charmed by Matilda's youth and smile and eyes. The frequent proposals were probably a kind of joke between them, a lighthearted jest.

"And one day you might say yes?" he teased.

She smiled again. "Maybe." And then she confirmed his suspicions about Cotter. "There is the age difference to consider, though."

He didn't especially like her smile; it spoke of a hundred secrets. He wanted to ask more about this shopkeeper, but couldn't think of a way to do so without sounding as if he were interrogating Matilda the way he used to do to his sisters when they took up with someone unsuitable.

"Well, thank you for walking me home," Matilda said. "I'd invite you in, but I'm afraid I have so much to do I'll be working straight through lunch."

Declan was more than a little startled to find himself standing before Matilda's cottage. He'd had no intention of coming this far, had no idea he'd been talking and walking for so long. He'd lost all track of time.

"I have to get back, anyway."

"Let me get you a glass of water, before you go," Matilda said, opening the door to her cottage wide. "There's a spring just over the hill, and I always keep a jar or two of fresh water on hand. It's better than any well water, I can promise you that."

He stood in the entrance to her house, not stepping inside, since he hadn't been invited. Matilda placed her empty basket on a table in the main room, and continued on to the small kitchen at the rear of the house. How could a petite woman in a plain brown dress look so tempting? Why did the way her hips moved as she walked away from him make his teeth ache?

Perhaps Matilda Candy was oddly attractive and even tempting, in her own surprising way, but nothing ever got in the way of Declan Harper's plans. Nothing and no one. All his adult life he'd planned for this return to Tanglewood. He'd made money because he needed it for this moment. He'd saved it, spending only on his mother and his sisters, so he'd be well funded. He'd worked too long and too hard to get here and allow one woman to muddy the waters.

She came toward him with a jar of water in her hands, and he reminded himself: he only wanted her love potion. Nothing else.

Declan quickly drank the water Matilda brought him. It was, indeed, quite good. He'd worked up quite a thirst, walking and talking with her. Still, it was a pleasure he should not plan on indulging in again.

He handed her the empty jar with a soft thanks, added, "I'll see you Monday," and turned to make the trip back to town. He had a feeling this second half of the journey, without Matilda's uplifting company, was going to be much longer than the first.

* * *

Two days later, Matilda placed yet another ancient book on the table, adding it to the musty pile. Declan would be here tomorrow, looking for answers. Tomorrow!

She had gathered more information than she'd ever thought to find out of these old books. Some of what she found was unusable but interesting. Some intrigued her but had at least one unavailable ingredient. And then there were the recipes for oils and lotions meant, obviously, for those already married. Matilda blushed whenever she read the explicit directions for the application of those potions.

What did a man like Declan see in Vanessa Arrington, anyway? She was beautiful, yes, but surely a man like Declan would look for more than beauty in his "queen." Matilda wrinkled her nose. If he knew everything she did about the much sought-after Vanessa, he'd likely change his glowing opinion.

She would never tell, of course.

Sunday afternoons were usually quiet in her little cottage. It was her day of rest, and no one called on the town witch on Sunday—as if it would be blasphemy to do so. So, when a knock sounded on the door, she jumped in her seat and slammed the book shut on a particularly interesting, if somewhat lascivious, recipe.

Her first thought was—Declan. He's so impatient, can't he wait one more day? But the soft chatter of young voices drifted to her before she opened the door, disproving her assumption.

Outside, Hanson and Gretchen stood on either side of a woman Matilda had seen in town once or twice but never met. Plain yet far from ugly, almost as short as Matilda but much more buxom, dressed in a blue calico that had seen a lot of wear but was still attractive, Mrs. Hazelrig, the twins' new stepmother, met Matilda's questioning gaze unflinchingly. She was, Matilda knew in an instant, a strong woman.

And yet she was clearly apprehensive.

"Run! Run!" Gretchen squealed. The girl tried to escape, but her stepmother held her collar, and Hanson's, in a firm grip; one twin securely restrained in each hand. "I told you, she's a witch!"

Matilda merely lifted her eyebrows as she awaited Mrs. Hazelrig's response.

"Gretchen, there are no witches in Mississippi or anywhere else," the woman said sensibly, and then she lifted her eyes to Matilda. "Miss Candy, I must apologize for my stepchildren's behavior. They do tell outrageous stories, on occasion...."

"We don't tell stories," Hanson protested. "At least I don't." Gretchen glared at him. "Usually," he added sheepishly.

"I found a half-eaten plate of candy..." Mrs. Hazelrig began.

"She's going to cook us in her big oven," Gretchen interrupted. "Run! Run!"

Hanson jumped in. "She made me spit! She... she stole my spit!"