Embrace the Day (43 page)

Somehow he managed not to hear. He didn't care that Ben had shot his first wild turkey, that Hattie was reading by the age of five, or that Dylan was miserable with the croup… Still Genevieve tried. She would never stop trying to pull her family together.

The sound of hooves pounding up the drive startled them. Sundays were generally quiet, the hands in town for some time off and the family together for their supper.

Rebecca parted the drapes and gasped. "An Injun, Pa," she breathed. Her eyes were wide and the edge of hysteria was there in her voice—the hysteria that always surfaced when she saw an Indian.

Roarke grabbed his rifle with a curse. But Genevieve recognized the visitor.

"Put that down, Roarke," she ordered sharply. "It's Gideon Parker."

"He's not welcome here."

Genevieve brushed past him and opened the door. "He wouldn't have come without good reason."

Roarke allowed her to go out on the porch, but he kept his rifle trained on the boy. Gideon was handsome and self-assured as he dropped from his horse, his face a placid, unreadable mask.

Rebecca began to whimper. Disgusted, Israel silenced her with a sharp order and joined his mother on the porch.

Gideon noticed Roarke's rifle, but he showed no fear. He nodded at Genevieve and then at Roarke.

"Luke needs you," he said simply.

Anger flared in Roarke's eyes. "Luke hasn't needed me since he disgraced this family by marrying a Shawnee."

"The Harpers are attacking the farm, Mr. Adair."

Roarke hesitated. Genevieve heard his sharp intake of breath. The Harpers' reputation was known—and feared— throughout Lexington; even back in Dancer's Meadow, they'd been a wild and unprincipled family.

Still… Roarke looked at Genevieve. She threw back her head and sent him a challenging stare. Israel limped down the steps, already armed and heading for his horse. Roarke's expression wavered in indecision.

It was Rebecca who made up his mind for him. Hesitantly at first, then boldly, she went to Gideon and touched his sleeve, giving him a smile that trembled but was full of conviction. It was the first time she'd touched another human being outside her family since her return from Indian country.

Then she turned to Roarke with tears in her eyes.

"Go to them, Papa. Please. I've been selfish long enough."

The words propelled her father to the stables, to fetch his horse.

Just before Roarke mounted, Genevieve kissed him, smiling with pride.

"Ah, God, Gennie," he said, rubbing his cheek on her hair. "I've been more a fool than a man has any call to be."

She nodded her head, eyes shining.

"But I love you, Roarke Adair," she said.

Luke scowled, thinking the shots he'd heard were from Ben and Gideon. He hadn't given them permission to go out hunting. Angrily, he put up his whipsaw and brass rule and mounted his horse. The boys knew better than to be shooting so close to the house.

His anger dissipated when he spied Ben running toward him. The boy gulped air, chest heaving with exertion.

"The Harpers, Pa! They're attacking the place!"

Luke reached down and swung Ben into the saddle in front of him. A fearsome tightness gripped his chest. "What's happening?" he demanded.

"Uncle Hance says there's four of them—"

"Hance?"

Ben bobbed his head. "He and Aunt Ivy came for sup."

Luke felt a prickle of displeasure but a more pressing emergency was at hand. He hadn't trusted the Harpers since Caleb and Spruce had tried to take Ben's dog; he'd forbidden the boys to go near the dilapidated farm after that. Naomi Harper had come by selling eggs one day, trying to conceal livid bruises on her face beneath the brim of a battered poke bonnet, confirming the rumor that the brothers treated their women with indiscriminate brutality. The Harpers were stupid, unpredictable, and dangerous.

Luke drew the horse up on the crest of the big slope in front of the house. On either side he could see movement, but the Harpers seemed to be lying low. Cautious devils.

And then he saw the reason for their caution. The two front windows of the house had been shot out, the curtains wafting outward on the breeze. A rifle barrel protruded from each of the windows. Just for a fraction of a second, he saw the blue-black sheen of Mariah's hair.

Terror thundered through Luke's vitals, robbing him of breath. This was no casual game of aggression but an all-out battle.

Almost unconsciously, Luke wrapped his arms about Ben, inhaling the scent of the boy's hair. He smelled of the summer breeze and boyish sweat and innocence. Leaning down, Luke kissed Ben's cheek.

"You've got to go, son," he said quietly. "There'll be no getting back to the house now, so I want you to take the path down behind the barn. If things get out of hand, you take to the river, you hear me?"

"But I want to stay with you, Pa."

Luke shook his head grimly. "All I've got is this pistol and enough shot for a few rounds. I can't trust myself to defend the both of us."

"But—" Another shot cracked through the air. One of Mariah's flower boxes dropped to the ground below the window.

"
Go
, Ben," Luke said urgently. He kissed the boy again and plucked him from the horse, sending him on his way with a firm pat on the shoulder.

Ben hesitated. "Pa?"

"What, son?"

Ben blinked his eyes and swallowed. "You're a brave man, Pa, and I love you."

Luke lifted the corners of his mouth in an attempt to smile. And then Ben was gone down the path.

Luke tethered his horse and primed his pistol. Then he crept through the woods, crouching low to keep out of sight. The breeze brought on it an ominous crackling sound and the scent of burning. Pulling himself up into a tulip poplar, he looked down into the hollow. A savage curse exploded from him.

One of the Harpers had set fire to the stock barn, the first place accessible from the slope. Already a plume of smoke rose from the rear section, and flames were licking up its back wall. A horse squealed, panicked by the scent of smoke.

Luke cursed again. All that livestock. The shoats he'd borrowed money to buy. Mariah's gentle milch cow. Ben's pony, and his cats. The boy's most prized possessions.

The cats
… Suddenly, Luke dropped from the tree and hit the ground running. If Ben knew the barn was burning, he'd head straight for it, to free the animals. Luke ran so hard he could barely see. Vaguely, he was aware that he'd been spotted; a ball tore a large splintered bite in the trunk of a tree as he passed. But he didn't care. He was sure Ben would try to get to the barn, and—

He arrived to see the rear part of the roof and wall in flames. Even from a distance he could feel the heat and hear the dreadful roar. Thankfully, Ben was nowhere in sight. Luke stopped and looked around. There was no noise but the squealing and bellowing of panicked animals and the roar of the inferno.

Then the barn door swung open. A huge cloud of smoke issued from the barn, and the fire inside, fueled by the rush of fresh air, grew redder and hotter. Animals burst from the building: one of the cats with a kit clamped firmly between her jaws, the shoats, running with uncharacteristic speed to safety, the milch cow. Then, finally, Ben's Indian pony and the dun mare, both squealing and pawing the air before thundering down to the blessed coolness of the creek.

Luke's relief was only momentary. He knew the animals' escape could only mean one thing: that someone was inside. Forgetting caution again, he ran toward the door of the barn.

Heat issued from the building. The inside was an unholy inferno fed by dry hay and timber. In the back several roof beams had collapsed and the ones in the front didn't have long to stand.

A gust of wind blew the smoke aside for a moment, and almost choking with terror, Luke made out a small form running toward him.

Ben.

Beneath splotches of soot his face was dark red and contorted. His arms were full of kittens; he was determined to save the whole litter.

A crossbeam flared and crackled and then collapsed just behind the boy. The one in front of that was about to do likewise.

Luke heard himself screaming at Ben to run, and then he was running, too, toward the raging heat. The falling beams seemed to be chasing Ben. The boy eluded every one, managing to hold the kittens as he ran for his life.

Before Luke reached the barn, Ben emerged. Spying his father, he let go of the kittens, which scattered in all directions. Luke dropped to his knees and stretched out his arms toward the boy, thanking God and all the stars of heaven that his gentle, brave, foolish son was safe.

In dropping to his knees, Luke eluded the bullet that had been aimed at the middle of his back.

It hit Ben instead.

The boy was just a yard from his father's arms. His feet left the ground as the explosion rent the air. The impact threw him back. He died instantly, even before the blood started to blossom from his shattered chest.

Luke couldn't stop to grieve over his son's body. That would come later, after he reacted to the maniacal rage that possessed him. Somehow he found his pistol.

His body was not his own. It belonged to the cold, demonic hatred that possessed him, not allowing him to think or feel anything but rage and determination.

Micajah Harper had fired the shot. He was looking with dreadful amazement at Luke.

Micajah ran. Then Luke cocked his gun, and he froze.

"Turn around, Harper," Luke ordered coldly. "I want to see your face when I kill you." Slowly, sobbing, Micajah turned.

Luke felt no cathartic rush as his bullet bored into Micajah's head, blowing off the back of his skull. Justice had been done, but that didn't change the fact that Ben was dead. Luke felt nothing but a cold wind blowing through his heart.

When Wylie Harper appeared, assessing the situation with a quick glance, he shouldered a gleaming rifle and aimed at Luke.

"You're goin' to die," he informed Luke.

"I know." Luke supposed Wiley wanted him to be terrified, but he wasn't. His impending death would merely spare him the pain of living without Ben. He found himself almost eager for the release.

Until he remembered Mariah and the others. They needed him, more than ever now that Ben was gone. But it was too late. Wylie was aiming his rifle, and Luke refused to beg for his life. He planted his feet and waited for the impact of the bullet as Wylie squeezed the trigger.

The shot that rang out didn't issue from Wylie's weapon. Luke watched, dumbfounded, as Wylie crumpled, shot through the gut from the back. Blood bubbled from his mouth and midsection as he slithered, cursing, to the ground.

Hance emerged from a cover of bushes near the path from the house. The blood drained from his face when he saw Ben's body.

"Oh, God, Luke, they shot your boy."

Luke looked at Hance for the first time in seven years. Hance's agony was so genuine that Luke found himself not caring about all the old enmity. Hance had saved his life and was convulsed with grief over Ben.

Hance held out his arms. "Luke," he choked, his face streaming with tears. "Little brother, come here."

Their hands clasped desperately, hopelessly, frozen with grief and agony and a sudden understanding that had eluded them all their lives until this moment.

Until the twin clicks of rifles shattered the agonized silence of their reunion.

"We've got the two of you now," raged Wiley Harper's son Caleb. "You owe us for what you done to our daddy," he said furiously. "Both of you." Caleb looked over at his brother.

"What say, Spruce," he inquired casually. "Do we finish 'em here and now?"

Spruce shook his head. "Not now, Caleb. First they're gonna watch what we do to their womenfolk."

Luke heard Hance's hiss of indrawn breath and felt him tense. He gripped Hance's arm.

"Not yet," he whispered.

"Right," Caleb agreed. "We got some things to do before we put you to rest."

"Damned right you do," growled a voice from behind.

Slowly, the four men looked up. Upon a winded horse sat Roarke Adair, magnificent in his rage, like a great flame-and silver-haired avenging angel. He was flanked by Israel and Gideon, also armed and angry.

Keeping his gun ready, Roarke dismounted. Never had he looked so fiercely protective.

"Drop your guns," he told the Harpers. "If you can manage to get out of my sight in five seconds, I won't kill you. I'll give you until sundown to leave the county."

The Harpers didn't hesitate. Hurling their weapons to the ground, they scampered into the woods.

Roarke drew an unsteady breath. Without looking right or left, he went straight to Benjamin. Gathering the limp form into his arms, he leaned down and kissed the boy's cheek. Then he approached Luke.

"Son," he said brokenly, "son, what can I say? What can I do?"

Luke took the boy from him, feeling his insides splinter into shards of sorrow. Tears streamed from his eyes as he started toward the house. He paused a few yards from Roarke and turned back, just as the last supporting beams of the barn collapsed and were engulfed by the fire.

"You can help me bury my boy, Pa," he said.

Tick, tock.

The clock above the mantel sent a quiet rhythm through the house. Genevieve glanced at it, reflecting. The timepiece had witnessed all the events of her life in America, from her struggles to wrest a living from Virginia's soil to the present moment. The little halfpenny moon in the dial was privy to all the family's blessed triumphs and bitter disappointments, its joys and its tragedies.

Tick, tock.

Genevieve stepped out on the porch and inhaled the sharp, cold air of the fall morning. Hoarfrost, a creature of the low, moist clouds, clung to grass and trees and hung in the valleys of the distant hills. Pulling her shawl more tightly around her, Genevieve shivered, feeling her age.

Tick, tock.

Not that fifty-eight was such a bad age to be. She was comfortable in a body that had served her well, from the backbreaking toil of her first tobacco farm, through the birth of five children—four of whom survived, praise God— and into the settling twilight of her life.

Tick, tock.

Feeling a familiar presence behind her, Genevieve leaned back against Roarke's broad frame. Always he was there, sensing when she needed him. They stood in comfortable silence, breathing the cold air and listening to the clock, fingers laced together.

A creaking sound intruded upon the moment. As one, they turned and watched an ox-drawn wagon lumbering toward them, its canvas hood arching above the passengers like a halo.

A lump rose in Genevieve's throat. Roarke slid his arm around her waist and drew her to him.

"I never thought it'd be Luke leaving us," she said.

"I think I did, Gennie. Ben's death only made it happen sooner." Roarke sighed warmly into her hair. "This land's not big enough for a man like Luke. It's gotten damned crowded these past few years. Luke needs a place with room to grow, a place where he can make his mark. His farm's just a piece of land now."

Genevieve nodded. Even after an estrangement that had lasted seven years, Roarke understood his son.

"Do you think he'll find what he's looking for in Missouri country?" she asked.

"I don't think it's so much a question of looking as it is of creating something." Roarke moved his hands slowly upon her shoulders. "At least I've made my peace with him. I couldn't have stood it if he'd left before I came to my senses."

Genevieve turned to lean up and kiss him. "You were magnificent with him about Benjamin."

But Roarke shook his head. "There's no comforting a man who's lost his son, especially like that."

"Still, you managed to reach him when no one else could." She smiled sadly. "We were all a little shocked when you took him fishing right after the funeral, but it worked."

"We had a lot to catch up on. In his grief, Luke forgot he had a damned fine wife and two other children who needed him."

The covered wagon was joined on the road by Hance's elegant chaise. He sat flanked by Ivy and Sarah, both of whom were flushed and plump with early pregnancy. The two vehicles rolled to a stop in front of the house.

"Hance left us so many times," Genevieve said. "It never surprised me. But Luke…" She blinked fast. "Luke was the steadfast one. The one we could depend on."

"We leaned too hard on him," Roarke admitted, his voice rough with regret. " 'Tis a miracle he's forgiven us." Arm in arm, they started down the porch steps.

Rebecca and Israel joined the family in the yard. For a while, the men stood smoking, talking about conditions on the western trails. The women spoke of more homey things: Did Mariah have enough flour and lard, bacon and coffee? What about tonics for dosing the children? Cotton scraps for stitching extra quilts?

Gideon Parker hung back from the group, flushing to his ears when Mariah announced proudly that he had won a place at Joshua Fry's renowned school in Danville. He would be preparing to study the medical arts. The farm, worked by Luke's foreman, would be Gideon's when the boy came of age.

The rising sun touched the frosted grass, turning it to a field of glistening green. Luke glanced up at the sun, and then at Mariah. An unspoken message passed between them, which everyone felt. The family drew together.

Luke gave a final tug on one of Sarah's ringlets, and for once, she didn't scold him. Rebecca embraced Mariah, murmuring how wrong she had been to let her old fears rule her.

"I cheated myself out of the chance to know you," she said.

"Look after Gideon for me," Mariah said. "Do that, and we'll always be friends."

Hance bowed to Mariah. He and Luke shook hands. Then, both of them laughing, they abandoned formality and yanked each other into a bear hug. Sitting on the steps, Israel held Hattie and Dylan on his lap, allowing the children to explore his wooden leg one last time before relinquishing them to their grandparents.

Genevieve stroked Hattie's silky hair, then, with shaking hands, tied her poke bonnet in a crooked bow beneath her chin. She gathered both children to her breast. Her aching senses devoured them, absorbing their smell, the texture of their skin, their sweet voices. They were children of an American family, as much a product of the land as they were of her and Roarke. She knew Luke would teach them to love the land, to make their mark in a way that would do homage to the nation Roarke had fought for, bled for and nearly died for.

She straightened up and kissed Mariah, whose face was stiff in a losing battle against tears. Nearby, Roarke and Luke shook hands, and the love and forgiveness that flowed between father and son was written on their rugged, unsmiling faces.

Genevieve broke away from Mariah and went into the house. She returned a moment later with the beautiful old clock and placed it in the back of the wagon.

"Mama, no," Luke protested. "The clock belongs to you."

She shook her head and struggled to speak through the thickness of tears. "It belongs to all of us, Luke. Having the clock will remind you that you'll always be a part of us."

"Thank you, Mama." Luke closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Lord, this is hard."

Suddenly Genevieve was in her son's arms. There was nothing left to be said; they had talked of this move for many weeks. So she whispered, "I love you. I'll think of you every day." And then she let him go.

As Luke and his family climbed into the wagon, Genevieve took Roarke's arm. They walked back into the house, to the quiet of their sitting room, never again to hear the click of the halfpenny moon. But their heartbeats matched the steady echo of the clock, marking another milestone in their lives, another parting. There had been so many of them.

Genevieve gazed out the open door at the wagon lumbering westward along the road. The rising sun swept the landscape in a blanket of gold, and her heart swelled as she lifted her hand in a last farewell.

Roarke's arm slid around her shoulders. She leaned her head against his broad chest. "We'll never see them again, will we, Roarke?" she asked.

He smiled down at her. "That depends, Gennie love, on how you feel about traveling."