Hearts Awakening (26 page)

“At least Ethan has an excuse for not talking to me. He’s a child. What’s your excuse, Jackson?” she demanded.

He froze, practically in midstride, and caught his breath. He turned and walked back to her, if only to convince himself he must have misheard her. “What did you say?”

She moistened her lips. With her hands folded on her lap, she kept her gaze on the fire. Her words were softly spoken, even calm. “I said I understand why Ethan doesn’t talk to me, but I was wondering why you won’t.”

“Discussing why you left earlier today is pointless.”

She nodded. “That’s one perspective, although I must say it’s an improvement. The last time you leaped to a wrong conclusion where I was concerned, you hurled angry words at me, which you regretted. You did throw coins at my feet, which was rather crass, but I suppose that’s better, too, unless—”

“Yes, I did, but there is no ‘wrong conclusion’ this time,” he argued, too annoyed to care that he was talking to her, in spite of himself. “Mrs. Schuler told me she saw you today, and you don’t deny it. When I got home, I read the note more than once, even though I’ve seen notes like that from Rebecca more times than I care to remember. I know you left the island and rode off today. Why you left makes no difference to me. You left and you let Grizel take care of Ethan, even though he was sick.”

“That’s true, but—”

“But in case you don’t remember, let me remind you that there were a few things you agreed to do when we got married. One of them, the most important one, was to honor my wishes never to leave this island alone and leave the boys with someone else. Or do I need to get the papers from the parlor to show you?”

She shook her head and sighed. “No, I don’t need to see the papers. I remember everything we agreed to.”

“Then I don’t understand why you won’t leave now, as I’ve asked you to do. You deliberately broke your word, and I won’t tolerate it. I can’t. Not again. Not ever again. I’ve made that mistake once too often before,” he said, fighting bitter memories that erupted in his mind.

“With Rebecca.”

His chest tightened. “Yes, with Rebecca. As it turns out, you’re no better at being a wife or a mother than she was. You’re just like her.”

“No, I don’t think I am, but I can’t say I know enough about your first wife to be certain of anything other than she was younger and smaller and far prettier than I am.”

“You’re right. You don’t look anything like her. But inside, where it really matters, you’re one and the same. You’re selfish and you’re never satisfied with anything you have. You must have more. Always more,” he insisted, struggling for control.

But he failed, and angry words gushed out of the deep well of his disappointments before he could stop them. “You act like you care about me and about the boys, but you don’t. You act like living here on this island is enough, but it isn’t. Not when you take the first opportunity you get to leave to pursue whatever it is that truly makes you happy. I’ve been such a fool, but then again, it seems to be a habit I can’t break.” Jackson then reached into his pocket and pulled out the wooden ring he’d found when Ellie’s sewing basket had fallen to the floor. He held it out so she could see it.

She did not flinch. In fact, Ellie did not seem surprised or concerned at all that he had found it. “The day I put this ring on your finger, you said it was the only ring you ever wanted. But that wasn’t true; otherwise, you never would have hidden it away in your sewing basket. I can only presume you planned to pretend you’d lost it so I’d be forced to buy you a better one. But you didn’t know I already had, did you?”

“Please. You don’t understand—”

“Oh, I think I do. But what you don’t know is that I actually bought that ring weeks ago, right before I wound up in that pile of manure. I didn’t want you to think I was trying to bribe my way back into your good graces by giving it to you right then,” he admitted.

When she remained stoic, as if his words meant nothing to her, he tossed the ring into the fire. “That’s where the ring belongs. In the fire, where it will be reduced to ashes,” he said. He watched the ring bounce off the log and roll into the corner of the fireplace, knowing the fire would consume it eventually. “This marriage was over before it even began, because in the end, it’s all about what you want and what suits you, regardless of who gets hurt in the process, isn’t it?”

She paled, tilted up her chin, but held silent. He thought he saw tears welling in her eyes, but she blinked them away before he could be sure. Just when he thought she might never answer him at all, she cleared her throat.

“No,” she said. “It’s all about doing what’s right, regardless of how difficult or inconvenient that might be. It’s about caring more for other people than yourself and being there for them when they need you. It’s about talking through misunderstandings. And it’s about trusting the woman you’ve chosen to raise your children to use her judgment when need be, instead of insisting she follow rules that are so rigid, there’s no room for her to be . . . to be the woman she wants to be instead of the woman you think she is.”

Jackson swallowed hard, but before he could find a single word to say in his own defense, Ellie got to her feet and faced him.

“You’re a good man at heart, Jackson Smith, but you’re still so angry that you’ve lost the woman you loved and so mired in memories that seem to be as bitter as they are sweet that you can’t even recognize that I’m not Rebecca at all. I wish I were, for your sake as well as the boys’, but I’m not. I thought that one day you would learn to trust me and to accept me as I am. Obviously, you haven’t yet, but if you don’t do it soon, the boys never will, and you’ll end up getting them more confused than they already are.”

Her words were so sincere, he had to steel himself to keep from weakening and telling her that the only woman he truly loved was still very much alive or that he had yet to give up hope they might one day be together.

But it was the deep anguish in Ellie’s gaze and her concern for his boys that gave him pause to really consider what she said, as well as the awful possibility that he had indeed jumped to a wrong conclusion today. He cleared the lump in his throat, but she held up her hand to keep him from saying another word.

“I need to get back to the Grants’. If you insist on walking with me, fine. I can’t stop you, but I think I’ve heard enough from you for now. We can talk more tomorrow, after you’ve had time to think about what it is you really want from me.”

“You don’t need to go to the Grants’ for the boys. I told you I was going to fetch them.”

She drew in a long breath. “I wasn’t going back just for the boys. I was going back to see Gram. I only pray I’m not too late.” She stepped around him and walked out the door to the front porch.

He charged after her. “Late? Late for what?”

She paused at the top of the porch steps and held on to the railing without turning to look at him. “Gram took ill today. She may be dying. Dr. Willows wasn’t certain, at least while I was there. All he could tell Alice and Grizel was that her heart was failing.”

His own heart thudded hard against the wall of his chest, and he knew the answer to his question before he even asked it. “How did Dr. Willows even know Gram was sick today?”

She bowed her head for a moment and drew in a long, long breath. “Because I rode to the mainland and brought him back to care for her,” she whispered, then walked away.

This time, he let her go.

Jackson was too ashamed and too embarrassed by his own behavior to ask for her forgiveness again right now.

But before he followed along behind her to get his boys and to see how Gram was faring, he ran back into the house and straight to the fireplace. He found the wooden wedding ring he had tossed there in anger and pulled it free with the poker. Although charred, the ring had not been reduced to ashes yet.

He used the end of the poker to snag the ring and carry it out to the kitchen. After he pumped water over the ring to cool it, he set the poker down and slid the ring back into his pocket before charging out the kitchen door.

When he saw just a flash of her skirts at the edge of the woods, he hurried his steps so he could follow along behind her just closely enough to make sure she reached the Grants’ safely.

Twenty-Five

The fire in the hearth was low at midnight, but hope within the household that Gram would continue to rally still remained high.

While the rest of the Grant family slept, Ellie limped out of Gram’s room but left the door ajar so she could hear if Gram made any sounds of distress. Gram was sleeping peacefully and her breathing was much less labored now than it had been when Ellie had gone to fetch Dr. Willows, and she hoped Alice and Grizel were also getting some much-needed rest before they resumed their bedside vigil.

She paused for just a moment to rub the small of her back before she started pacing as quietly as she could to walk out the cramps in her feet and legs. She cringed now and again when her muscles protested, but she pursed her lips and kept walking. If she stopped, the cramps only worsened, a lesson Ellie had learned well while taking care of her mother without anyone to help her.

She glanced at the low-burning fire, but quickly looked away because it only reminded her that her wooden wedding ring was now nothing but ashes in the fireplace at home.

“Ellie? Is everything all right?”

She clasped her hand to her heart and spun around. “Alice! I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to waken you.”

“You didn’t at all. My husband can take credit for that. You couldn’t hear him snoring all the way in Gram’s room, could you?” she whispered as she approached, wearing a long robe and a nightcap.

Ellie shook her head. “I just needed to walk off a few leg cramps,” she explained.

“I knew it was too much for you to stay with Gram tonight, especially after all that riding you did,” Alice replied as she walked along beside her.

“I wanted to stay. Besides, you and Grizel needed some rest, and Jackson’s been taking care of the boys on his own for a good while. He knows how to get them both into bed.”

“I still think you should have gone home with your family when they left after supper. Jackson was very understanding and forgiving with us for asking you to ride for Dr. Willows, but he did seem a bit reluctant to leave without you. I hope he isn’t upset with you for staying.”

Ellie swallowed hard. She was not about to tell this woman that he was upset because he wanted her off the island, not back at home with him or even here with the Grants. As far as she knew, he still felt that way; otherwise, he would have caught up with her and apologized instead of following along behind her all the way here. Once they arrived at the Grant homestead, there had not been a moment when they had been alone, even if he had wanted to apologize. “He knows how important it is for Gram to have someone with her,” she said finally.

Alice took Ellie’s arm and stopped, forcing Ellie to stop, as well. “I’m up and awake now, and I’d like to stay with Gram. I’m sorry I haven’t a bed to offer you, but there’s a good quilt on that rocking chair by the fire. You could rest fairly well there till morning.”

“Are you certain you’ve had enough rest?”

Alice laughed. “As certain as I am that my husband will be snoring for the rest of the night.”

“Then if it’s all right with you, I think I’d like to go home so I can be there in the morning to fix breakfast.”

“You want to go now? It’s the middle of the night!”

“I know, but I could use the walk home to get rid of these leg cramps, and I wouldn’t have to worry about waking anyone,” she insisted, although she really did not like traveling after dusk, let alone when it was completely dark outside.

“But you hardly know your way around the island yet.”

Ellie chuckled and took both of the woman’s hands in her own. “I can hardly get lost if I stay on the roadway. Please promise you’ll send for me tomorrow if you and Grizel need a rest or if Gram needs anything at all.”

Alice squeezed her hands. “I will, but my husband will be here to help us. You be careful now. If anything happens to you on your way home, that husband of yours will not be as forgiving with me as he was today.”

“I’ll be fine,” Ellie insisted. Without bothering to correct the woman’s assumption about Jackson, she returned her hug and left for home. The moment she stepped outside, however, she had second and third thoughts about walking alone in the dead of night, even though the air was mild and there was not even the hint of a breeze.

The new moon overhead scarcely cast any light at all, which made it hard to see, and the amazing bed of stars tempted her to look overhead instead of where she was walking. Crickets and other critters filled the air with sounds both familiar and unfamiliar, but Ellie kept reminding herself as she walked that there were no predators on the island that would find her good prey.

When she passed the landing, she knew she was headed in the right direction and her confidence grew, along with her strength, now that her leg cramps had finally eased up. She could hear the river lapping at the shoreline to her right, just beyond the stand of trees, and she could smell the apples in the nearby orchards.