After the Frost (25 page)

And he knew in that moment that he'd been lying to himself. He hadn't followed her here to apologize for not believing her. Hadn't followed her to tell her he trusted her. He hadn't wanted forgiveness for today.

He wanted it for a cold November night six years ago.

"Oh, Jesus." He raked his hand through his hair and stepped back, suddenly trembling.

She lifted a brow. Her voice was heavy with sarcasm. "Somethin' wrong?"

"No. No." He shook his head. "I—" he took a deep breath, forcing his voice steady. He had to get away from her, had to lose those memories, the singing of those words in his mind.
". . . only if you kiss me, only if you kiss me, only if you kiss . . ."
He stepped back again. "Listen, why don't you take Duke and go on home? I'll walk." He heard the panic in his voice and knew that she did too, but he didn't care. Not about anything but getting away from her. "Take the horse. Go home. I need the walk." Then, when she didn't move, he said brokenly, "Please, Belle, just get the hell away from me."

She shrugged, and there was a wealth of meaning in the gesture, an angry indifference that wounded him. "Fine," she said shortly, turning away, and he wanted to call her back, to make her stay.

But he didn't know what he would say. There was nothing to say except
I'm sorry
, and he was already too sorry for too many other things. So he just watched her leave, watched her take the horse and ride away down the rise, her hair glimmering in the moonlight, all soft gold and yellow and brass.

It was then the images came drifting back, along with the sound of her voice, roughly sweet:
". . . only if you kiss me . . ."
This time he didn't have the strength to fight it, and he let it come, washing over him in waves of bittersweet memory: the way she'd felt against him, soft and warm, and the taste of her mouth, and all the things he'd tried to forget about her, all the things he wanted to stay forgotten.

And he wondered if he would ever be able to forget them again.

"T
he potatoes need to be brought up," Lillian said mat ter-of-factly, turning from the stove. "I've put it off far too long."

Belle looked up groggily from her oatmeal. She'd had a sleepless night, had laid awake thinking about Rand's apology, wondering what the hell he wanted from her. She'd hoped to gain some peace this morning, but from the look on her mother's face, that was impossible. Lillian was standing there, her hands planted firmly on her hips, watching as if she expected a reply.

Belle tried to remember what her mother said. Potatoes. Something about potatoes. She looked down at the lumpy gray oatmeal and gave it an idle stir. "That's nice," she said, hoping it would be enough to make Lillian go away.

"Are you listening to me, Isabelle?"

"No."

Lillian gave an exasperated sigh, one Belle recognized all too well from her childhood. "Then hurry up with your oatmeal. We've got work to do."

Belle's head jerked up. "
We?
" she asked incredulously. "You want
me
to help you with somethin'?"

Lillian nodded. "You and Sarah. The two of you have been running around this farm like children. It's about time you did some work."

"Sarah
is
a child."

"One is never too young to be useful."

The words had the unwelcome ring of familiarity, and Belle winced. "Oh, yeah."

Lillian threw her a disapproving glance. "Isabelle."

"There's nothin' wrong with havin' a good time, Mama. Maybe you should learn that instead of all these lessons you're constantly preachin' on."

"Finish your breakfast." Lillian untied her apron and hung it on a peg near the door. She pulled another from the peg, an older, coarser one, and put it on with crisp efficiency, tying it with a flourish. She pulled open the door, and a draft of cold morning air streamed into the kitchen. "Sarah!" she called. "Sarah, get in here now!"

"Oh, for God's sake, Mama." Belle pushed back her bowl and got to her feet. "I'll help you if it'll make you feel better, but let Sarah go on and play."

"Sarah played yesterday."

It was an obvious reprimand for the trip to the canal, and Belle took a deep breath and bit back the retort that sprang to her lips. She was too damned tired today to go toe-to-toe with her mother, and it didn't matter anyway. She already knew Lillian would get her way, and Belle and Sarah would be pulling potatoes all day, and that was just the way things were going to be. There was no point in fighting it, and Belle wasn't sure she wanted to anyway. At least she and Sarah would be together, and Belle was fairly certain she could think of some way to make pulling potatoes fun.

Sarah came bursting in the back door. "Here I am!" She threw a big smile at Belle. "Belle, c'n we go back to the canal today? I bet Bandit's there, and we can jump off—"

"Later, Sarah," Lillian said firmly. "We have work to do today."

Belle made a face. "I hope you like pullin' potatoes."

"Pullin’ taters?" Sarah frowned. She looked at Lillian. "But, Grandma, I want Belle and me to go to the canal!"

"The canal will still be there tomorrow." Lillian handed Belle an old brown apron and motioned to the door. "Come along, now, both of you. It's already almost noon."

"It's already almost noon."
God, how often she'd heard those words when she was a girl. The sound of them now sent annoyance racing through her. Lillian grabbed Sarah's hand, and the two of them went out the back door. Belle gulped the last few sips of her coffee so quickly, she nearly burned her throat, then she put on the apron and followed her mother and Sarah out the back door and to the side of the house. The day was sunny, but there was a chill in the air along with the lingering dampness from last night's frost. It would be winter soon. Winter, when there was nothing to do but stay cooped up inside, when the morning was as dark as the night before.

It made Belle tired to think of it. Not because she didn't like winter but because being imprisoned by snow and ice meant there was no place to go, no place to escape to. And after last night she was beginning to realize just how much she needed such a place.

Despite herself she thought of Rand again. Of the way he'd come into the tavern and lied to her, of the way he said
"I'm sorry"
—all that sincerity, all that hope tied up in two words. The two words she'd waited six years to hear.
"I'm sorry."

She'd pictured them a hundred times in her mind, imagined him on his knees in front of her, begging for pardon. There were times when she thought the only thing in the world she wanted was to hear him say,
"I'm sorry. Please forgive me."

So that she could laugh in his face and walk away.

She'd nearly done that yesterday. Had refused to accept his apology, had left him standing there alone in the moonlight. But somehow it didn't fill her with the satisfaction she'd expected. Instead she felt—empty. Disappointed.

Belle told herself it was because he'd apologized for the wrong thing. He'd apologized for thinking she took Sarah, for not trusting her. But not for treating Belle so badly six years ago. Not for any of that.

She should have accepted his apology, she knew. But something had burrowed inside her, a burning resentment that made her want to reject him, to hurt him. She wanted him on edge, nervous and uncomfortable. She wanted to punish him.

"Belle! Don't dawdle."

Her mother's voice broke into her thoughts, and Belle looked up to see Lillian and Sarah already in the garden. Lillian held a beat-up bushel basket, and Sarah was looking at a trowel as if it were some sort of weird monster. For the first time since her mother suggested it, Belle found herself not minding the thought of pulling potatoes. If nothing else, it would take her mind off last night. It would keep her from searching the fields, looking for some sign of Rand. It would keep her from wondering what she would see when she looked into his face today. And what she would do about it.

She hurried over to the garden.

"There's another trowel over there," Lillian said, pointing. "Isabelle, why don't you start at that end? Sarah, you come and work with me."

"But I wanna work with Belle."

Lillian frowned. "Belle's got her own work—"

"It's all right, Mama." Belle smiled. "Come on, Sarah. You and me can pretend we're huntin' for buried treasure."

"Yeah!" Sarah beamed. She came hurrying over. "I'll be Pirate Kate, 'n you can be my slave."

Belle raised an eyebrow at Lillian. "Pirate Kate?"

Her mother's frown deepened. "Rand reads her those terrible things, not I."

Belle knelt until she was even with Sarah. "Don't listen to her," she said in a loud whisper. "I saw her read 'Bandits of the Osage' once."

Sarah frowned. "What's an Oh-sawge?"

"It's a place. But they've got Indians there."

"I heard stories 'bout Indians. Mean ones that scalp people. I had a bad dream 'bout 'em once."

Belle smiled reassuringly. "Well, they're mostly gone from here. But out west there are plenty of—"

"That's enough, Belle." Lillian came marching over, taking Sarah firmly by the hand. "Go on into the kitchen and get a rag," she instructed Sarah. She waited until the child had gone a few yards before she turned again to Belle. "You'll give her nightmares."

Belle sighed and got to her feet. "I'm just tellin' stories, Mama."

"They aren't fit for a child's ears." Lillian made a sound of exasperation. "Pirates, Indians—the next thing I know, you'll be telling her stories about outlaws and criminals."

"Only if I can think of one with plenty of blood in it," Belle joked. "Really, Mama, you're gettin' upset over nothin'. They're just stories, just a little fun, that's all."

Lillian's face tightened. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Isabelle, you haven't changed at all." Angrily she turned away.

Belle felt the heat of a flush on her cheeks. Her mother's words sounded strangely familiar, and she remembered last night, when John and Charlie had told her she hadn't changed at all and she'd thought it a compliment. Had laughed and smiled and agreed that no, she hadn't changed. The echo of those words rang in her mother's voice, only now they were touched with scorn.

And Belle suddenly realized they weren't a compliment at all. They were more like a curse.

She watched Lillian grab the bushel basket and move with small, weary steps to the other end of the garden, bending at the waist as if she were an old woman carrying a burden too heavy to bear. Belle knew without asking what that burden was.

It had always been the same. It had always been her.

The knowledge made her chest tight, and that, too, was familiar. She'd felt that particular ache since she was a child. For a lifetime she'd seen the disappointment and bitterness in her mother's face, had known that somehow she wasn't the daughter Lillian wanted. In her mother's eyes she had never been good enough. Never gracious enough, or sweet enough, or proper enough. But Belle thought she'd learned to live with that. In the last six years she thought she'd made peace with it, had learned to make a place for herself.

It was a shock to realize it wasn't true. A shock to realize her mother could still reduce her to nothing. "You haven't changed at all." The words whittled away at her, banging against her defenses, and along with them came the urge to believe them.

Even though they weren't true. She
had
changed. She'd had no choice but to change. The impetuous, carefree girl she'd been was gone; that girl had disappeared one freezing November, had shattered beneath the onslaught of Rand's betrayal and her mother's angry words.
"You're a disgrace to this family, a disgrace, do you understand me?"

Belle swallowed through the lump of tears in her throat, forced herself to take a deep breath and look away. She was done with those memories, done with the restless nights spent hoping her mother hadn't meant the words, wishing somehow that they were a lie. Knowing they weren't. In all those nights Belle had made herself one promise: Her mother would never, never make her cry again. She could live with the fact that Lillian didn't love her. She could live with knowing she would never be the daughter her mother wanted. But she would never let Lillian see how much that hurt.

That's what Belle told herself, anyway. And if deep inside was the hope that maybe someday—someday she would wake up and it wouldn't hurt anymore, then it was only a trivial wish, a passing fancy. A dream that didn't matter now and never had.

But she knew that was the biggest lie of all.

Chapter 18

H
e waited outside the schoolhouse until the bell rang. The front door opened, and the children came streaming out, talking in high- pitched, excited tones, swinging empty lunch pails and carrying McGuffey's Readers close to their chests. He stood there by the stump in the schoolyard, nodding hellos to the children as they passed, hearing their
"Hey, Mr. Sault"
s with half an ear. His eyes were trained on the old clapboard schoolhouse, on that open door, and his mouth was dry. He should not be here, he knew that.

But he had no choice. The images from last night still danced in his head, haunted his dreams. Over and over he saw Belle's golden hair, saw the shadowed wariness in her eyes and the defensive way she held her chin. And over and over again he heard the words from their past:
". . . Only if you kiss me. ..."

No, he had no choice at all.

Rand waited until the last child had left the schoolyard, until their voices echoed back to him from the road, and he straightened and looked at the open door.

He swallowed and went inside.

Marie was near the far wall, writing something on the big blackboard. Her handwriting was neat and even, every letter perfectly rounded, perfectly spaced. She reached up to push away a stray hair from her face, and the motion was graceful and delicate even though she didn't know anyone was watching.