Shades of Honor (10 page)

Evelyn was in the livery brushing her prized Thoroughbred when she heard a loud bang and Rebecca’s scream.

She flew out the back door, her heart bursting with fear as she saw Radford leap the paddock fence.

“Dear God,” she whispered, spying Rebecca lying on the ground beside the overturned wheelbarrow. Gus pranced at the other side of the paddock, snorting and pawing the worn grass.

Evelyn ducked between the rails and ran to Radford, falling to her knees beside Rebecca. “What happened?” she asked, her chest pounding with fear.

Radford didn’t spare her a glance as he reached for his daughter. He cupped Rebecca’s face in his palms then gasped in relief when her eyes opened. “Thank God,” he whispered.

Rebecca blinked again, then scrambled to her knees, clawing at Radford until she was held tightly in his arms. “That horse k-kicked me,” she said, bursting into tears.

The breath rushed from Evelyn’s lungs as she glanced at Gus, who was certainly agitated enough to kick anyone. “What happened?”

“I don’t know,” Radford answered, his voice trembling. He eased Rebecca away and checked her face and body for injuries. “Where did he kick you?”

Rebecca pointed to the overturned wheelbarrow and mound of hay beside it. “He kicked that and it fell on me,” she wailed. Seeing that Rebecca was only frightened and not seriously injured, Evelyn sagged back on her knees, her eyes meeting Radford’s. “What was she doing in the paddock?”

“I said, I don’t know!” Radford snapped. With shaking hands, he set Rebecca away from him. “What were you doing out here, Rebecca?”

She hiccupped and pointed to her stick lying a few feet away. “I was
gonna
t-train him.”

“What?” Radford asked, his expression baffled.

Evelyn glanced at the stick in sudden understanding. For the last several days, Rebecca had watched with avid curiosity as Evelyn trained her yearling. Apparently, she was trying to imitate Evelyn’s actions, just as Agatha Brown had warned she would do. “I think Rebecca was using her stick as a riding crop. She must have spooked Gus.”

Radford’s gaze shot from Evelyn to Rebecca, whose tears were still rolling down her cheeks. “Did you touch that horse?” he asked, pointing to Gus who had backed to the far side of the paddock, his eyes still white with fear.

Rebecca nodded. “I was
gonna
train him.”

Radford’s nostrils flared and his voice came out hard. “I thought I told you to stay away from the horses.”

“I wanted to train—”

“I don’t care what you wanted to do! Do you realize that horse could have killed you?” he shouted.

Rebecca’s eyes widened and she shrank back.

He gave her a firm shake. “Do you understand that?”

Rebecca’s chin quivered and her eyes flooded, tears flowing down her cheeks like a river. She nodded in jerky movements.

“Don’t you ever do that again, young lady!”

Evelyn clenched her fists. “You’re scaring her, Radford.”

Radford’s angry gaze swung to Evelyn. “I sure as hell hope so. It might save her life.”

“Being afraid won’t save her from anything. She needs to be taught what can hurt her.”

“That’s what I’m doing.”

“No you’re not. You’re making her fear your actions if she disobeys you. That doesn’t satisfy her curiosity about Gus.”

“To hell with her curiosity. Look where it got her today.” He turned Rebecca toward Evelyn.

Rebecca’s cheek was brush-burned and her clothes were covered with hay fragments, her tiny interlocked fingers were stained with dirt and tears. Her pathetic sobbing wrenched Evelyn’s heart and fired an anger deep within her.

Burning with indignation for Rebecca, Evelyn glared at Radford. “You have only yourself to blame for being blind. Even I could see the curiosity brimming in Rebecca’s face every time she looked at the horses. You can’t keep her wrapped in cotton, Radford. She’s a healthy little girl, who’s curious about the world she lives in.”

His lip curled. “She’s a little girl who needs her father to protect her.”

Radford’s voice was cold, condescending. Pride kept Evelyn’s gaze pinned to his. They stared at each other in frigid silence. Rebecca’s soft crying and Gus’s agitated pawing mingled with the distant sounds of the lumber mill.

Was he so wrong to want to protect his daughter? Radford wondered. Isn’t that what a father was supposed to do?

Evelyn stood and brushed the dirt off her knees. “You protect her then, Radford, but don’t ask me to ignore Rebecca when I know I can help her. She deserves to be a carefree little girl. And she needs a doll!”

“She had one. She gave it to her nanny’s baby when they moved away.”

Radford saw the momentary flicker of surprise in Evelyn’s eyes before they became cool again. “Do you think that maybe she regrets giving away her baby doll?”

“I bought her one to replace it, but she pushed it under her bed and never played with it.” Radford sighed and shoved his hair back with a shaky hand. “I think it’s best if you leave this alone, Evelyn. You don’t understand what Rebecca’s been through.”

Her shoulders stiffened. “Maybe not, but I understand little girls who are frightened and alone and just want someone to love.”

“Rebecca doesn’t want a damned doll!”

“Fine!” Evelyn shouted. “But she needs to feel safe in the world around her, not just on her blanket or with her hand tucked in yours. She was trying to venture out on her own today and got hurt because she isn’t prepared. Until you recognize that, you’re imprisoning her and cheating her out of her childhood.”

Radford was
not
going to feel guilty for caring enough to protect his child. He’d failed to do that once and Rebecca had suffered because of it. “I’m trying to see that she
survives
her childhood, Evelyn.”

Her head jerked up, eyes snapping. “Animals survive, Radford. People
live
. Little girls laugh and explore!”

Radford’s teeth clenched as he caught Rebecca in his arms and stood up. “What makes you an authority?”

Evelyn’s face drained of color and her lips thinned. “Experience,” she said quietly. “Being motherless.”

Radford didn’t have the breath to stop Evelyn when she strode away. Instead, he cupped the back of Rebecca’s head and pulled her to his shoulder. She buried her face and shuddered. “I’m sorry, sweetheart.” He stroked her back. “Daddy’s sorry.”

“I was
gonna
train that h-horse,” Rebecca cried into Radford’s neck.

“I know, sprite.”

“I was
gonna
give him an apple, too.”

Radford’s gaze swept the paddock. Beside the wheelbarrow lay Rebecca’s withered, half-eaten apple. She must have carried it in her pocket since lunch, saving it for Gus. She’d seen Evelyn feed them to the horses. She’d seen Evelyn guide the yearling with her riding crop. God only knows what other potentially dangerous things she’d seen Evelyn do.

Rebecca lifted her head and scrubbed her eyes with grubby fists. She blinked and looked at him. “Don’t be mad no more, Daddy.”

“I’m not. I was just scared.”

“Is that how come you yelled at me?”

“Yeah,” he said, his throat thick with regret. Guilt swept through him. He had never yelled at Rebecca. Never.

Rebecca was all he had, the only good thing left in his life, his only reason for facing each day. Maybe Evelyn was right. Maybe he was blind. Or maybe he was just selfish.

Without Rebecca, he had nothing. But what did she have? What was Rebecca getting from him?

When her father stumped into the kitchen the next morning, Evelyn stood up and poured his coffee. “Do you think Radford will be going back to the mill soon?”

He kissed her cheek and took the thick mug she offered. “He’ll go back when he feels he can.”

“It’s been four weeks already.”

He paused, lips on the rim of his cup, eyebrow lifted. Slowly, he lowered the mug. “It may be four more.”

“Why?” Her outburst made him grimace, but he settled himself at the kitchen table without comment. Evelyn knelt beside his chair and took his hand. “Papa, I don’t want him here. Kyle can help me. Or he can hire another man.”

“What difference does it make who’s
helpin
’ us out?”

The difference was that Radford was turning her life upside down. One minute she wanted to hit him for being blind to Rebecca’s needs, the next, Evelyn was melting over his obvious love and tender affection for his daughter. Though they had spoken little since their argument yesterday, Evelyn had forgiven Radford’s comments, knowing he’d been upset. Still, his presence in her livery scattered her senses and drew her attention to things she didn’t want to notice. He directed her eyes like the wind turning a sail, then she’d find herself admiring the strength in his long, lean body. Before she knew it, she’d be examining his handsome face and wondering if he kissed like Kyle. She had to get him out of her house!

“I think Radford is unhappy running the livery,” she said, trying one last selfish attempt to sway her father.

“‘Course he is. He wants to be at that mill with his brothers where he belongs.”

“Then why doesn’t he go? Why doesn’t he just challenge Kyle and get it over with?”

“Because now
ain’t
the time and he knows it.” He reached out and patted Evelyn’s cheek. “You’re worrying about nothing.”

“Nothing?” Evelyn’s heart sank along with her hopes. “Papa, I love walking into that livery in the morning, feeling I belong there, pouring my heart into each job I do because you taught me to. Those horses are special to me. I love the musty smell of that old barn and the way the sun makes the hay gold in the morning and bronze in the evening. When I’m out there, I feel you working beside me. Sometimes when Radford uses the forge, I hear his hammers ringing and it’s like you’re right there, but it’s not the same anymore.” Evelyn swallowed to clear the emotional thickness in her throat. “That’s my world, Papa. Our world. And it means a great deal more than nothing.”

He ran his palm over her hair and sighed. “I asked you to trust me, but maybe I asked too much. That livery belongs to you and Kyle just as surely as the sawmill belongs to Radford.
Ain’t
nothing
gonna
change that, pixie.”

“I wasn’t worried about Radford taking over,” Evelyn said, grasping her father’s trembling fingers. “It’s just that the livery feels different with Radford there. I don’t feel comfortable like I used to with you working beside me, and I don’t want to lose that.”

“Maybe you need to. You haven’t let yourself care about anything else in years. You need to go out and visit friends once in a while. Have Kyle take you to a dance some Saturday night.”

She didn’t dance. She didn’t have any friends other than Amelia and Agatha. She had the livery and her father. And feelings for Radford she didn’t understand.

 
“I don’t care about those things, Papa. I’m happy here.” She kissed her father’s frail hand. “If Radford isn’t back at the mill by the end of summer, will you ask him to leave?”

The life seemed to drain from her father’s eyes and he pushed his coffee cup away with a sigh. “You may as well cut out my heart. I love that boy. He’s been through hell most people couldn’t even imagine. If the livery is that important to you, then I wish to God I’d never owned it. Because now it owns you.”

 
 
o0o

Evelyn plunked the saddle and bridle on the fence wishing she’d never approached her father about getting Radford out of the livery. It had crushed him to think he may have to choose between herself and Radford. She’d been unfair to her father, and to Radford. She shouldn’t have condemned him for wanting to protect Rebecca. He was a good father, shortsighted maybe, but Evelyn should have realized it was his fear that made him so harsh with Rebecca, and held her temper in check.

Sighing, Evelyn climbed between the rails and gave a short, shrill whistle for the bay-colored, snip-nosed yearling. He trotted to her on spindly legs and she lifted her palm to give him a lump of sugar. It was then that Evelyn saw Rebecca near the fence, clutching her yellow blanket, watching.

“Daddy’s in the barn with a man,” Rebecca said shyly.

Knowing he was with a customer, Evelyn crossed the paddock, wondering if Radford knew his daughter was outside. Rebecca's gaze followed the colt as he picked at tufts of grass along the fence, and Evelyn realized she had an opportunity to lessen Rebecca’s fear of horses. “Would you like to pet Jake?”

Rebecca eyed the colt, but she didn’t move.

Evelyn squatted beside Jake and waited for Rebecca to decide, hoping the incident with Gus wouldn’t give her a lasting fear of horses. The child's steps were hesitant, but to Evelyn’s delight, she came. Rebecca took her finger from her mouth and tentatively touched Jake's forelock. He lifted his head and knocked her hand away, causing her to step back.

 
“That's his way of playing.” Evelyn held her hand flat with palm facing upward. “Hold your hand like this and let him smell you so he knows who you are. Then you can give him a treat.”