Fight for Glory (My Wounded Soldier #1) (13 page)

“But,” and he was
sniffing like Johnny would, “you’ll be gone. Ma says you won’t come home again.
She cries all the time, Tom.”

I breathed heavy.
Lord I wished I’d bedded outside.

“Do you love us?”
he wanted to know.

I guess I hadn’t
told them. Now I felt a choking in my throat. I saw how slow Pa moved, how it
pained him to go at sun-up, how he asked the same question three times.

“You and Gaylin
are all grown up, old as me and the boys when we went to war. You’ll be there
for the folks, marry some pretty girls,
have
lots of babies.”

He sniffed and
laughed a little.
“Maybe Gaylin.
No girl wants the
preacher. Not if she’s in her right mind,” he laughed a little more, but I
heard the heaviness in his pretending.

“Well, just don’t
get to be one of those stern fellows, just likes the sound of their own
cracklin’. You won’t do that.”

He laughed some
more. “I don’t plan to.”

“Well, you’ll do
alright. Girls always like the Tanner men. I don’t know why. But they do.” I
felt those old
kind
of tears getting loose in me.

“I thought you and
Missus….”

“Don’t talk about
that,” I said.

He was quiet
then, but I could feel he was hurt.

“You were such a
little bugger when I lit out. But I always thought you might be the best of
us,” I said. “Don’t surprise me you got the call.”

“Really?
I never knew you gave me a thought.”

“Course I did. I
remember the night Ma had you. Gaylin stood at the bedroom door, wearing a
dress and crying his eyes out.”

We both laughed
at that.

“Ain’t much
different now,” I said, and he laughed with some glee this time.

“You boys are
alright. Me and Garrett…even Jimmy, we’re proud of you all.”

“What…happened
with you and
Jimmy.
I remember you and him….”

“He was always
more Garrett’s pard than mine. We got on alright, but
him
and Garrett were like me and William.”

“Tom? What
happened that night…when Garrett died? If you leave, I’ll never have a real
chance to know.”

“Me and Jimmy
done told the family the day of the funeral,” I said. The day we buried that
empty casket in that grave my pa dug.

“Can you tell me
anything else? Like…you said he died quick…and you were with him.”

I swallowed, Lord
I was thirsty, that deep thirst that met the blackness with its own kind of
howl. “Why keep going over it? Let the dead bury the dead.
Don’t
the book
say that?”

“Yeah.
But…I wonder if you didn’t tell us a story just for
Ma. I worry about it.”

“Why do you
worry? Knowing a few more this and that’s won’t bring him back. He died for his
country and he died a hero.
That’s all any of us need
to remember.”

“Tom?”

“I am purely
tired.”

“One more thing…you
never did say…do you love us?”

It all came at me
again, riding like the Cavalry, the dust rising, the hooves thundering. All
this feeling, and it scared me it was so big. “Yes,” I said, barely able to
breathe.

It was the best I
could do.

Sometime in the
night, my eyes snapped open. Someone was creeping. It wasn’t Seth. His snores
attested he hadn’t moved. I figured it was Johnny. He’d kicked up a fuss when
his ma said he couldn’t sleep with Seth and I in the hay. I’d had to be stern
with him, and I hated that, but I figured they didn’t trust the likes of me,
after my actions in the yard that morning.

She stood over me
like an angel, her white gown billowing in the breeze that graced this old
barn. I got up silent, wearing my socks and just my britches. I hadn’t slept
deep, and just the sight of her was more powerful than the whole pot of coffee
for waking me.

I followed her,
her form visible in the moonlit yard. She moved quiet but quick, leading me
behind the house to the tall grass that swayed in the wind. We went yonder,
almost to the tree line, and she turned and undid the buttons at her throat.

“Addie,” I said.

“I will be with
you this one time, Tom. We will comfort ourselves. I am no virginal girl, and I
am not married yet. I would lie with you this one time, know you just this
once, and I’ll remember it then for the rest of my life.”

“Addie, you
can’t….”

“Shh,” she said,
lifting the gown the length of her delicate legs. She gathered it in her small
hands, until it raised over her shapely thighs.
And her
womanly hips and her small waist.
Over her torso and
her soft, round breasts.

It was over her
head and she spread her gown on the grass. She stood before me then, her beauty
taking the breath from me. I had never seen anything close, nor understood it
existed. She was lovely.

Yes, I had seen
many a card passed in the war, I had seen female form, but not nearly such a
miracle as this woman’s delicate beauty all at once, the way she was fashioned,
round and small and new milk colored and rosy, and hair soft and dark hiding
her woman’s place, even those tiny feet, her hands, her shoulders, her breasts,
Lord God. Then she turned slowly, and as she stood with her backside to me,
another work of art, and she reached and undid her long braid, and she shook
out her hair, and it came to her waist in dark waves. And she turned again, and
showed me herself, and my eyes had not known such a respite from all of my
sorrows, my eyes alone were worshipping.

I took a step
toward her, but she motioned to my britches, and I was out of them quick. Then
I stood as brave as she had, and I turned slow, but I had no braid, so I
scratched my neck, and I turned round.

“You’re
beautiful,” she said, and I was anything but, but her, oh my, oh my.

I went to her. “My
Addie,” said I as I slipped my arms around her and brought all of her flesh
against mine. Oh my God, I groaned like a lonely bull in the field. She was
soft and warm, and feeling her fresh and secret places against me, I put my
hand on her backside, and I tried not to push too hard, but glory I nearly shot
the cannon right then.

I picked her up
and laid her down on her spread gown, and I went beside her, nothing hurting me
now, just her beauty, just this skin that I let myself put my mouth on,
starting with her shoulder, kissing, but tasting, if a thing was permissible,
and I dragged my open mouth along her, I licked her, and I tasted her, all
along, over her breasts which made me blind with desire, and comforted me like
I heard the Lord could do. Turns out, with the light of the moon on us like
magic she gave me whatever I wanted, she did not hold anything from me, and I
kissed her and told her things I did not know I had words for. I spoke soft to
her, and felt like all of life was in my hands, like she gave that to me, only
me and no other, no matter what.

“Join
yourself
to me,” she whispered then, her face so beautiful,
eyes so deep and dark, and I wanted to meld with her, for there was nothing
like this, nothing. “I love you,” I said. “I love you, glorious girl, I love
you.” And I gave her everything I had, everything I am.

And I wept then. I
wept. And she wrapped herself around me. And I let it stampede through me,
through us, while we held on, while I stayed in. I wept.

Tom
Tanner

Chapter
Seventeen

I marveled at our
joining.
That was my first thought as I held her.
I
was still now, the weeping had left me, and I was so quiet inside I barely
understood who I was. Or maybe I could see it now for the first time. It was
like my body was filled and emptied in one go. Like the right things had come
in so the wrong things had to leave because a body can only hold so much before
it explodes.

It had not been
easy trying to be some kind of a regular man. From the first I’d seen Addie
that day of peril and loss when I’d picked her up from her porch, I had been
coming alive. I don’t know how many times I had not just relived the moment
Janey came from Addie’s body into my hands, but I could feel the small wet life
against my fingers. I knew then I had been given a gift that countered other
things these same hands had done.

Or maybe it was
when I stood in the field with my memories and heard a young boy calling my
name. Maybe it was then. Or maybe it was when I first saw her that day at
church with her husband, her belly hidden beneath that shawl. Johnny looking at
me as he passed for I stood in the back where I could get out quick if the need
arose, but Johnny knew then we’d been men of war, soldiers, and like the other
boys in that room, he revered us for it in the purest way.

I did not know
the time of it. I just knew I loved them. I felt love. It wasn’t all pink skies
and rainbows yet. The darkness ringed the happy truth. But Addie was in my
arms, and I knew I had to rouse her, for she was so still I knew she slept.

She thought I was
beautiful, inside and out she’d said that night in my room. And today, with the
marks on me, she still thought it. But that Quinton had been blunt, she said. Why
wouldn’t he be? Here he was, trying to step into his cousin’s life, guilty for
the way things were.

Seemed to me that Charles Varn cut out the children to punish
Addie.
She had stood to him. She had always felt out front. And the
murders proved it. She was fire and she’d married milk.

I had wanted a
man of worth for her. This one had his strong points. And were she not
mine
, in some ways he might do. But she was mine.

She said she
would have me one time to remember for the rest of her life.

I would not let
her go now. This joining sealed the union for me. I would write my pard in St.
Joe’s. He’d go on without me.

A voice in my
head said, are you sure fool? This was your last chance.

So my mind went
round and round until she awoke, maybe
cause
my
thoughts grew so loud. She lifted her head and smiled at me.

“You best go,” I
said, reluctantly.

“I enlisted
Lavinia in this plan, you know.”

“Cousin Lavinia? How….”

“She is a woman,
Tom. She didn’t approve, by the way, but how else could I slip out the window
if someone wouldn’t watch Janey? And Quinton is a snorer. So it’s easy to know
if he’s asleep. And I made it clear…I did not seek her permission.”

Addie was a
soldier. Johnny knew. I knew there was much good I could bring to her life…if I
was good…if I could walk this straight and narrow way.
 
But she was something on her own, and I found
it confounding and unpredictable.

She reached and
kissed me. My lips were sore from the fighting and the loving, but I didn’t
mind at all. She had pretty well kissed everything, and it was on the way to
healing.

“Addie,” I said,
trying not to ogle as she got on her knees and I rolled aside so she could get
her worked over gown, “I know you feel you have to go…but I’m not wanting you
to.”

“Now Tom,” she
said, shaking out her gown and pulling it over her head. It left me addled to
see such a beautiful display. “I didn’t come out here to trick you into
marrying me.”

I had stood, and
stepped into my britches. She was not shy in watching me do so. “Are you saying
you won’t marry me?”

She had been
looking for my socks, but she stopped now, like she’d heard a stick snap. “Are
you asking me to marry you?”

“If you’ll have me.
I see no other way for us.”

Her hands went to
her hips. “That is what I feared, that we would join like this and you would
get sentimental. Don’t you know you will regret it? I’m going to do for you
what you did for me the night you got me drunk on that whiskey….”

“I meant to dull
your pain is
all.
You make it sound….”

She came to me
then, “Shhh.” She gently touched my lips. “Loving like this is the most
powerful thing. You’re drunk with it, is all I meant. This is no time to speak
of marriage.”

She was so lovely
and sassy at the same time, infuriating and everything I could have wanted and
more. “What better time, after you’ve left with him and fallen prey to his….”

She was trying to
quiet me again.

“What if we made
a child just now?”

“I would love
that child,” she said.

My hands were on
her again, but after this morning, I was trying to be careful, but she spoke
fighting words so easy. “Do you think I’m gonna stand by…I love you. I want you
and Janey and Johnny and any more that come. You’re mine. You’re all mine.”

She pulled away. “You
are making this so hard, Tom. Now stop it. I never had an intention of using
our lovemaking to tie you to me.”

“Why won’t you
listen?” I said. “Don’t you tell me that wasn’t
love.
When
we joined, it was my heart and it was yours.”

“Love is not our
difficulty.”

“Then what in
tarnal is?”

She looked
thoughtful, “You have not declared marriage before. You have shown love…but not
dedication. I already had a marriage with a man filled with regret. When he
came here with me he always looked back, stuck in the past. We could not go
back for his father had disowned him. And I was not enough. So I lived in that.
I will not know that again, Tom. You are drunk on our lovemaking and you are
saying the things required. I knew you would, though I hoped you wouldn’t. I
cannot accept your declaration. Your plans are laid. I cannot keep you from
your adventure and bear the result. I will not.”

“You know I
haven’t been free in my mind. I’ve shared that with you this day. That’s what
held me back, not loving something more than you, woman. Say you’ll marry me.”

“I won’t, Tom.
Richard’s mother was broken hearted when we went away, and now that I’m a
mother…I can see how it must have been for her. Charles Varn was a cold tyrant.
She was weak…like her son. She hasn’t seen these children…and I can’t deny her
that. I am not the young girl I was when I judged her so harshly. I would be a
better person now, Tom. I need to shut the coffin lid on my past, don’t you
see?”

“I’m writing my
pard in St. Joe’s soon I get home. I’m not leaving.”

“Your family will
be so happy. I know you are looking for peace. I felt your deep sorrow tonight,
as if it was in my own heart. That’s how close I felt.”

“Then marry me!”
I all but yelled it.

She shook her
head. I could scarce believe it.

“Addie I
swear…are you going to marry him?”

“I don’t know.”

“You would?”

“I don’t know.”

“How could you?
Then you whored yourself to me!” I yelled.

She pulled a big
breath. “You’re not listening to me, Tom.”

“I heard every
bit of your bullshit, woman.”

“Well better to
have the memory of your fire than live looking for warmth among your cold ash.
Don’t you stay here for me,
Tom.
Don’t you
dare.
”

“What does that
mean? Why else would I stay?”

She had her eyes
closed and was shaking her head.

I was done with
her foolish knowing, her strange talking that made no sense. She was breaking
me into pieces. She was the devil right now.

 
“Well you know this,” I said, close to her face,
talking through my teeth, “that twopenny hypocrite don’t have the sand to find
his own woman but comes to buy you
cause
that’s what
his kind do. That’s what your husband did too, buy folks, sell folks,
use
folks. I guess you’re first in line cause that’s all you
know. But don’t you think I am that kind of man who makes a promise and don’t
deliver. You don’t know me girl, you don’t know me. I put a bullet in my own
brother.
From a promise.
That’s what you have never
understood.”

Her dark eyes
were open and on me now.

“That’s right,” I
said sounding more like a fool than any fool I knew. “That’s right…,” I said
again
cause
I was out of words.

“You are a
wounded soldier, Tom,” she whispered.

I had no wound
so
deep as her rejection.