Though My Heart Is Torn: The Cadence of Grace, Book 2 (5 page)

“Thank you, Gideon.”

He clutched her face in his hands and kissed the top of her head before striding from the room.

Sugar stood stone still and blinked in the early morning light while Gideon added the last pack to her burden. He moved around to the other side of the beast, his boots scraping across near-frozen ground. His breath was a white fog. He eyed the rising sun, pleased that no clouds covered the sky. The days would be warm enough. Yet it was the nights that worried him.

Traveling with a baby stirred in him a desire to bind two more blankets atop Sugar’s matted rump. Gideon slipped the leather strap through the buckle and yanked it with all his might. The mule nearly stumbled beneath his strength, and he patted her side in apology. Under any other circumstances he would have hesitated to set out this time of year, but not now, not when Lonnie so desperately needed to get home.

As if his thoughts had drawn her, Lonnie stepped behind him.

“That’s the last of it,” he said. “Is Jacob ready?”

“He’s dressed and fed. Elsie’s got him inside.”

Gideon pulled his frozen fingers from the final strap and thrust them into his coat pocket. He turned and looked at Lonnie. Her cried-out eyes spoke testament of last night’s restless slumber. “All’s left is to say good-bye, and we’ll be off.”

Lonnie led the way back to the house, and he followed close on her heels. The lingering smells of fried bacon and warm syrup greeted them, and Gideon knew he would miss Elsie’s cooking. More than that, he would miss everything about this place. This was his home now—his and Lonnie’s. It felt strange to be leaving it all behind with Rocky Knob as their destination.

Gideon looked around the snug kitchen and soaked in the familiar sight one last time. Lonnie’s quivering sigh hinted that her heart was on the same path. He squeezed her hand. They would return soon.
A few weeks at most
.

Lonnie wished Elsie and Jebediah well, her voice laced with a tremor.

It was a bad time of year to travel back to Rocky Knob, and as much as Gideon wished they could delay their journey until spring, he knew he could never ask it of his wife. He only hoped they were still in time for Lonnie to see her ma.
If not …
Gideon shook away the thought as he slid his hat over uncombed hair.

Elsie clutched his cold fingers in her warm hand. “You keep them safe.”

Gideon tried to chase away his unease with a smile. “I will.” Elsie tucked a small sack that steamed with warm biscuits in the crook of his elbow, and Gideon ducked his head in appreciation. “We’ll be home before you know it.”

Lonnie’s face was flushed and her eyes wide as they stepped toward the door. Gideon wished she had slept better, but her quiet cries hadn’t ceased until long after the last bag had been packed. By the time he collapsed into bed after readying their supplies, her face was toward the
wall, faint sniffles breaking the late-night silence. He was certain she cried not only for her ma, but also for the lost childhood and the memories that lingered beneath the storm cloud of her pa’s roof.

Jebediah threw a chunk of wood in the stove, drawing Gideon back to the present. The older man closed the heavy door with a
clang
.

When silence filled the kitchen, Elsie threw her palms up in the air. “No sense standin’ ’round here with long faces.” She flapped her hands at them. “Off with you two. The sooner you get on your way, the sooner you’ll be comin’ home.”

The door opened, spiriting in the cool morning air. Gideon took Jacob. With the boy’s favorite quilt tucked around him, the red-haired babe blinked sleepily. He was a bundle of warmth with his wool sweater buttoned snugly over two flannel shirts. As Gideon led the way out into the morning, he straightened his son’s cap. The brown wool, knit by Elsie’s loving hands, covered his downy soft curls, and Gideon watched Lonnie stuff into the pack a small deerskin hat that Jebediah had fashioned for the boy.

Gideon cleared his throat, wishing he could calm his jumpy nerves.
Jacob will be warm enough
, he assured himself. Lifting his eyes to the horizon, he watched the once-orange sky fade to blue as the sun lifted its sleepy head over the clouds. With the mule’s rope in hand, Gideon tugged the old animal along. A pile of leaves blew across their trail. Shades of gold, red, and green glittered in the brightening sunshine as their feet found the trail.

Leaving the familiar farmyard, Gideon only hoped their trip to Rocky Knob would be a short one. “Git on up!” he called and tugged the lead rope. Sugar quickened her pace, and Gideon glanced behind him to make certain Lonnie was close. Turning his attention back to
the trail ahead, he eyed the changing landscape. They had yet to travel their first mile, and already the longing for home left him feeling empty.

Having caught up, Lonnie kicked at a pile of leaves, only to have them spray back on her in the breeze. Gideon’s smirk widened, and she nearly smiled back. They walked on in comfortable silence. The life that called the forest home provided the song that set their feet in motion: birds chirped as they fluttered about, sending down a chorus of jumbled melodies, and the breeze in the dried leaves overhead whispered faintly as it rippled through the branches. With the forest providing the music, Gideon lifted his face, wishing he knew the words to the mysterious song.

They’d hardly gone an hour when Lonnie froze and stared at the steep ravine. Even though the morning sun hit her back, warming away autumn’s chill, her legs went cold.

Gideon shuffled to a standstill, and he exhaled. “Well, I’ll be.”

Her heart a sudden jumble of emotions, Lonnie glanced away and into her son’s sleeping face. He was snuggled in the sling she had fashioned for the journey. Though his nose was red and runny from cold, he seemed peaceful enough. A blue-winged warbler called out, breaking the stillness. Gideon’s hand captured hers, and he offered a firm squeeze.

Still, Lonnie shivered. “I don’t like this place.”

Gideon scanned the trail in front of them, and his gaze met hers. “I don’t blame you. It’s not my favorite place either.”

They stood in silence. The rugged hillside sloped sharply. Trees that had fallen in years past had tumbled down, only to land in a silent graveyard of rotting bark and limbs at the base of the steep ravine. Their rough edges resurrected the painful memory, but before it could form in her mind, she noticed that, with no rain falling, the place looked different. The man beside her more different still.

Gideon pointed to a stagnant puddle, an emotion pulling his voice tight. “Right there.”

Lonnie nodded as the horrid images made their way back to her heart.
The cold. The rain
.

His anger
.

“That’s where I fell,” she whispered.

She had been so tired, so weak. Nothing she could have done or said would have dispelled the anger in Gideon’s eyes. Lonnie turned away, yet the grim images were not easily pushed aside. There had been pain. There had been fear. All of it hers.

She heard his words as clearly now as she did that day. “Get up!” he had hollered.

Lonnie shuddered. Even with the passing of time, she could still feel the rain beating against her hair. Feel the slick mud as she crawled toward him, praying for a deliverance. For days he had set a grueling pace, and for days she had tried to keep up. But it had been impossible, and she’d paid the consequences. The memories turned her feet to ice.

When she glanced at Gideon, his eyes were glassy with remembrance, his face pale as if carved from stone. “I’m so sorry that I hurt you. I’m sorry I let myself go that far.”

“I know.” Lonnie caught hold of his hand and lifted it to her lips. The man who stood before her was nothing like the man from that day.

His fingers slipped from hers.

Undeterred, Lonnie slid her arm in the crook of his elbow. Her husband. Her beloved. She peered up into a pair of eyes the color of a meadow in spring and felt the oppression of that moment slip away.

This was a new day, and her husband, a new man. She patted his forearm. “I can think of one good thing,” Lonnie said, crinkling her nose. “That’s where Jebediah almost shot you.” She leaned her head
against Gideon’s shoulder. “Now there’s a memory that brings a smile to my face.”

His deep laugh awakened a spring inside him, and she felt her cold chills chased away.

“Thanks!” He gave her that grin. “I’m glad at least somethin’ about this place makes you smile.”

“Oh, I assure you it does. Though”—Lonnie tilted her head to the side and stared up at Gideon—“I don’t remember it well. Remind me. What was that look on your face again?”

“Uh … utter terror. And now you’re just hurtin’ my feelings.” He stifled another laugh. “I deserved that one.”

Lonnie glanced from side to side but knew there was no other way around. “Well,” she began. “In the name of reconciliation, Mr. O’Riley”—she nodded toward the trail they were bound to walk—“would you mind helping me downhill this time?”

Gideon held his arm out for Lonnie to take once more. “It would be my pleasure, Mrs. O’Riley.”

Cassie peeled a chunk of bark from a red oak and flicked it toward the water. Her thoughts, having strayed from her chores, had carried her bare feet to the edge of the creek. The water was low this time of year, but enough flowed through the narrow gully to carry the piece of bark over a moss-coated rock and away. She sank to her knees, draped an arm across her lap, and grazed fingertips through the icy water.

Jack called her name from the house, his voice distant. Cassie knew supper was on, but she ignored him. She wasn’t hungry. Her soaked hem swirled in the water, and she stumbled back. “For heaven’s sake.”
She bent over and wrung out the blue and white calico that, like most things she owned, had more frays than trimmings.

“Cassie!” Jack hollered again. “Supper’s ready. Ma wants you
now
!”

“Comin’!” she hollered back. Her voice startled a red-breasted woodpecker, and it rushed from tree to tree.

She watched Jack return to the house. At sixteen, he was her younger brother by six years. As if the age difference mattered not, he stood a head taller than she was. His shoulders, though wiry, were nearly as broad as Eli’s.

Her feet clung to the damp hillside as she staggered up the creek bank, trying to keep her wet hem from dragging in the dirt. Despite her efforts, her ma would wonder what she got herself into. Cassie should have been setting the table, but she had slipped out, leaving the task to her younger sister, Libby. It was the third time that week.

A dozen brown hens swarmed around her ankles, and she gently kicked at them. “Off you go, now. I ain’t got nothin’ for you.”

The ornery chickens followed her toward the house in a chorus of clucking, and Cassie stumbled around them as she tried to keep from stepping on feathers and wings.

Weathered boards creaked underfoot as she climbed the three porch steps. Hattie, the old basset hound, lifted her droopy face. Knowing she had but a moment to spare, Cassie quickly scratched the dog between the ears. Her ma peeked through the window and waved her inside. Cassie slipped into the warm house.

“Where have you been?” Libby groaned as she took her place at the table beside Jack. She glared at Cassie and tucked a strand of hair behind her mouselike ear.