Finding Grace: A Novel (6 page)

They were now within distance of the house.
She hoped to get to the security of her family, before he said
anything else about marrying her. Even if it was a joke, it made
her uncomfortable. The way he’d looked at her, and the way he’d not
laughed along with her, made her feel strangely tense. She was
thankful when one of her brothers came walking hurrying towards
them. For once, a brother was a very welcome distraction.

"About dadgum time you two got back,"
Matthew said. "Mama and Daddy were about to send the hounds to
sniff you out. They want you to stay for supper, Charlie." The two
of them walked away, leaving her a few steps behind. And she had to
say she was happy to have the moment to herself.

The idea of marrying Charlie made her very
uncomfortable. Yes, he was her friend. And yes, she had wanted him
at their supper table. But now, there would a sense of tension in
the room, and she wished there could be some way to avoid it.

She looked at Charlie and Matthew, walking
in front of her, and it angered her to think of her folks' sudden
generosity. Not so long ago, Charlie had hardly been spoken of. Now
they were inviting him to supper like he was one of the family?
Something just didn't seem right.

With a shake of her head, she forced away
her suspicions. Folks were always coming and going at the house.
Now that Charlie was back in town, he was a neighbor, and wasn't it
the right thing to do, inviting neighbors over to eat sometimes? As
for the whole nonsense of she and Charlie getting married, she had
to laugh at herself for getting so carried away. He'd always been a
bit silly as a boy.

In all likelihood, this was just another one
of those kinds of times.

It
had
to be one of those
times.

* * * * *

The men were talking of fish. What else
would the subject be, when they had it on their plates? Usually,
fried catfish was one of her favorite foods. But not tonight. She
found she had no appetite. And the reason for her loss of hunger
was sitting right across from her.

She watched Charlie as he ate his supper,
and she wondered if he knew how awful he looked. He talked with his
mouth wide open, letting everyone see the food he’d just chewed up.
And he was loud…obnoxiously so, shouting and carrying on just like
her father and her brothers. They were all trying to talk over each
other as they told their fishing stories. It was enough to make her
sick. He dressed well, and his intelligence seemed to show in the
way he spoke. Why, then, were his manners so atrocious? She didn’t
know why she felt such disillusionment with him, and she felt
guilty for having such shallow feelings. But she couldn’t help it.
Her only hope now was to get through supper, and then, maybe she
could make up some decent excuse to escape to an early bed.

Her father tapped the tabletop with his
hand, commanding attention, but Grace only half-listened. What he
said was usually directed at the boys, so it wasn’t of much concern
to her. She leaned her head in her hand, looking away as her father
spoke.

“
Yesterday morning, I ran
into Charlie here while I was on my way to work. He had something
real important to ask me. Now, he has something he’d like to ask
our little Gracie.”

She whipped her head around and a bolt of
panic shot up her spine. It seemed in slow motion that she watched
Charlie stand up, wiping his mouth with a cloth. She knew what he
was going to say. She knew it as if she was saying the words
herself, but she prayed it not to be so. She pleaded for help from
heaven for it.

Dear Lord, please don’t let him say what I
think he’ll say...Please Lord, get me out of this.

“
I’ve been gone a long
time,” he said. “But you sure can’t forget where you come from, or
the people you left behind.” He came walking around the table, and
in a moment he stood at her side. Slowly he reached out to take her
hand.

She wanted to jerk her hand away, so
unnerving was his touch. She wanted to turn and run away. But she
was rooted where she stood, unable to escape, trapped like a rabbit
in a snare…and then the moment was upon her.

“
Grace Langdon, will you be
my wife?”

For the first time in her
life, she thought she might faint. She wanted to.
If I could go out of life now, without too sharp a
pang, it would be good for me,
she quoted
silently. But there was no such mercy, and she felt every eye in
the room on her, waiting for her answer. She looked at them, then
at him. She knew just what they expected. She knew what Charlie
expected. But the answer she gave was her own, bubbling up from
somewhere within, almost involuntarily.

“
No,” she said, shaking her
head. “I can’t.”

There was a collective gasp…And then the
whole room became silent as the grave.

Chapter 4

“
Friends and
Enemies”

What happened next? She hardly knew, for it
was a quick blur. She only knew that in a flash, Charlie had
whisked her outside, away from her shocked and wide-eyed family.
When he looked at her, his expression was serious, with no hint of
softness. His eyes were cold...his tone low, but sharp.

“
You’re fooling with me,
aren’t you?”

She looked at him, shocked by the sound of
his voice. Something inside of her hoped he was only teasing. But a
little warning voice whispered that this was no game. Still, she
tried to keep her own voice light and pleasant, hoping he would
soften his manner. Her words trembled with a nervous attempt at
levity.

"You're the one who’s fooling, ain’t
you?”

She laughed again, but he said nothing. And
the longer she waited for him to reply, the more she realized he
was quite serious. Her mouth turned down in a fretful line.

"Charlie, I can't marry you. It's just about
the silliest idea I ever did hear of. It’s crazy."

His reply was firm. "What's so crazy about
it?"

She didn't know how to answer. Just a little
while ago, they’d been sharing a lovely afternoon. But now, he was
starting to make her nervous. His green eyes, which had so moved
her, now shined with repressed anger. It was frightening to see.
But she spoke as bravely as she could.

"Charlie, we can’t get married! We hardly
know each other.”

His brow furrowed. “We’ve known each other
all our lives, Gracie Langdon. How much more familiar do we need to
be?”

She tilted her head back, as if pleading to
heaven for help. Her voice had a tone of frustration in it, and
when she looked at him, her eyes pleaded for his understanding.

“
Charlie, we were kids
together. You’ve been gone all this time, and now you come back and
just expect to marry me at the drop of a hat?”

He looked at her, his expression growing
darker…and she realized that he meant just that. He wanted to be
married and he didn’t want to wait. She slowly shook her head in
denial.

“
Charlie, I don’t want to
get married,” she answered, more forcefully now. “I’m not
ready.”

His response was bitter. “Not ready to marry
me, is that what you’re saying?”

She shook her head. “I’m not
ready to marry anyone.” She sighed, feeling the need to heal where
she had wounded him. “It’s not that I don’t care about you.
I
do
care, a lot. I
always have. But I don’t love you, Charlie. Not the way two people
should love each other, especially when they talk about getting
married.”

He took to pacing back and forth. “You think
I don’t love you?” he asked.

With a groan of frustration, she pressed her
hands to her face. “Charlie, how can you say you love me? Love
takes time to blossom. We knew each other a long time ago, but
we’re grown up now. We ain’t the same people we used to be. If you
think on it, you and me are strangers in most ways.”

He took a sudden step forward, gripping her
arm.

“
I’m not good enough for
you. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it? You’re just like your
brother. Too good for anybody who came up with you. I’ve heard what
they say about you...that you turn away every man that comes to
call. What makes you so high and mighty?”

His words cut her deeply. But they also made
her temper rise. He reminded her of so many other men in her
life...how they had tried to use fear and power to intimidate and
control her. It was infuriating to think he was trying to do the
very same thing. She yanked her arm from his hold.

“
What is wrong with you?”
she demanded. “One minute you’re as sweet as pie. The next minute,
you’re as mean as a snake. It makes me wonder who the
real
Charlie Hillard
is.”

He sneered. “I could say the same thing,
Grace Langdon. You treat me good one minute, and the next thing you
know, you’re throwing a marriage proposal back in my face, looking
at me like I was some kind of toad. All this time I thought you
really cared about me. Turns out, you’re just like everybody else.
Uncle Robert was right...all of you women are liars.”

“
I never lied about
anything!”

His lip curled. “You’re a two-faced bitch,
Grace Langdon.”

If she’d had a good stick at hand, she would
have walloped him senseless. Instead, she shoved him backwards as
hard as she could.

“
Charlie Hillard, you ain’t
worth the gunpowder it would take to shoot you! Now get off of my
porch and out of my sight!”

He snorted. “I wouldn’t stay around here if
you got down on your hands and knees and begged me.” He turned
towards his car, cursing her as he went. “You’re a fool. And God
help the fool who gets stuck with you.”

He was half way down the drive when she
rushed down from the porch to snatch up a rock. With a mighty pitch
she hurled it at him, gaining great satisfaction when it hit him in
the back. He glared at her, and with a snort of disgust he fled,
his car spraying up rocks and dirt in their angry wake as he drove
away.

* * * * *

Now that he was gone, her hurt came forth in
a great wave, demanding full sway. Silent tears began to roll down
her cheeks. She angrily brushed them away, feeling shameful for
wasting tears on him, but she couldn’t help it. All she wanted to
do now was go to her room and hide, cry out her hurt into her
pillow, and be done with it. By the morning, she would never have
to give another thought to him. She turned back towards the
house…and ran smack into her father. His face was flushed dark with
anger…and suddenly he grabbed her by the arm, shaking her.

“
What in the hell is wrong
with you?”

She couldn’t speak. She opened her mouth,
but found she could not utter a word, and a fearful chill began to
run down her spine. Her father's grip was fierce, his steps much
too swift, as he pulled her up the steps and into the house. She
stumbled slightly at the second step, but he took no notice as he
opened the door and yanked her in with him. Her brothers were all
gathered in the front room, clustered around the window, and they
turned to stare at the two as they came in. But their father wasn’t
playing games.

"Get to bed, or I'll knock the fire out of
every one of you!"

They scattered like rats, and he moved into
the kitchen. Pulling out a chair, he forced her into it. She looked
up and saw her mother, sitting at the other end of the table, while
her father stood over her, his expression dark.

"Girl, what kind of fool are you? A man puts
his pride on the line, asking for your hand, and you run him off
like he's some kind of varmint?"

Her voice was small as she answered, trying
hard to force back tears.

"It wasn't my fault. You should have heard
some of the ugly things he said to me.” Surely they would
understand when she told them what they hadn't heard. "He said
awful things to me. He said I never cared about him. But that's not
true. I cared more about him than anybody."

Rachel spoke up, coldly. "Well you have a
fair way of showing it. He come here and gave you the chance for
something better, and you spit in his face."

Grace’s voice squeaked. "But Mama, I don’t
love Charlie. I can’t marry a man I don’t love, especially one like
him.”

"Oh for Pete's sake!" cried Rachel, rising
up from her seat, her chair scraping the floor loudly, and Grace
jumped at the sound. Rachel walked back and forth for a moment,
cradling her forehead in her hands, shaking her head. Then she
froze, folding her arms. She looked at her Grace with an icy
glare.

"Did you know he could’ve had his pick of
any girl in this county?"

Grace didn’t see what that had to do with
anything. "What does that mean to me?" she asked.

Her father stood over her. "When he gets
married, he gets all the land his father left. That don't mean just
the old shack in the woods. That means the big house in the valley,
and the two-hundred acres of good bottom land that goes with it.
And you just threw away the chance to have every bit of it."

Grace felt a numbness taking over her body.
So that was why he was in such a rush to marry her. He had said his
father had left him the house, but he had left out the part about
needing a wife to acquire the property. And now, it seemed her own
family was turning against her. No matter that Charlie had lied to
her, had treated her so meanly. If they could get rid of her, like
a burdensome cow they no longer needed, then they really and truly
would. She was just another mouth to feed, and the best way to get
rid of her was to give her to a man in marriage. All of her life
she’d known what is was to be of small value, but she never
believed they would stoop so low as this. It hurt so badly it made
her breathless. And it lit the fire of anger in her belly. That
anger had served her well before, and it came to her aid again, as
she lifted her chin in defiance.