Ignited (2 page)

She’d burned two dresses in the past week alone, as well as one of her two nightgowns. She’d also managed to get herself a nice welt on her upper arm while trying to fix her sleeve two days earlier. The burn still hadn’t begun to properly heal—thus, the cardigans she’d been forced to wear. The mishaps, the lapses in control—they seemed to keep happening, no matter what she tried. She’d been stuck in the sweaters all summer.

With her father’s limited income, she knew she had to be careful when asking for things, but there were only so many times she could wear a long-sleeved sweater in the middle of summer before people began to ask questions she could not answer. The new fabric was a necessity, whether she felt comfortable asking for it or not.

She looked over the options before her. The cheapest fabrics—the ones her father was most likely to agree to purchase—were to the right, the same dull earth tones and neutral colors she always wore. It was sinful to covet things, but that did not make it any easier to turn away from the vibrant reds and purples and blues in a variety of textures. She longingly fingered a purple chiffon, heaving a sigh.

“That would look lovely on you,” came a voice from just behind her.

Ruth gasped and turned, pushing her back up against the swatches. Before her, Dr. Henry Porter had his hands up, suppliant and apologetic.

Dr. Porter had grown up in Independence Falls, though Ruth had never spoken to him. Her father was not a man who believed in medicine. He thought that whether or not a person survived was the will of God, and that doctors were evidence of man’s arrogance. He’d even refused to take her into the makeshift hospital when she’d gotten sick after the Firelight Festival, weeks before.

Ruth had been forbidden to attend the festival itself. Frivolity made room for the devil, according to Edward. The Lover’s Bridge alone was an encouragement to carnal sin, and he didn’t believe that a town founded by a prostitute needed any more of
that
.

Despite their limited contact, Ruth knew who he was.
Everyone
knew who he was. The only grandson of the town doctor, he’d caused quite a stir when he’d returned some months earlier to take over his grandfather’s medical practice. The fact that he had gone away reedy and come back tall and lean had not hurt anything either.

Not that Ruth had thought anything like that about him. She’d never even
spoken
to him before.

Until now. And, of course, now that the moment had arrived, her mind was a perfect blank.

“I’m so sorry,” he continued. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I just—I saw that you were looking at that fabric, and I thought I would try to … um ….” He sighed, somehow managing to smile and grimace at the same time. The tips of his ears turned red beneath his dark hair. “I’m just going to go.”

“Thank you!” Ruth blurted, the words coming out far too late. She resisted the urge to dip her head forward and hide beneath her hair. “But I was just looking. I would never buy something like this.”

The young doctor grinned at her, his face lighting up in a way that made her heart kick in her chest. She hadn’t realized, before, just how young he was. Not yet thirty and already in position to have his own private practice. The thought brought her heart rate down. He was young, successful, and educated, and the highlight of her week was when she was allowed to follow her father into town. Their lives were so different, it was hard to believe the same small mountain town had produced them.

He didn’t seem to notice the inequality—or was just doing a better job at being polite. He touched the fabric, his hand hovering near hers. “Why not? Is it the wrong kind for clothes? I don’t know anything about clothing or sewing. I’m useless with a needle and thread.”

“It’s too expensive,” she said, and then immediately wished she hadn’t. She hadn’t
meant
to, that was for certain. She’d made up her mind to end the conversation, but apparently her mouth had disagreed. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I said tha—”

“Ruth.” A hand clamped down on her shoulder, and Ruth felt her knees go weak. Her father’s voice was low, the inflection too even. “What is it you’re looking at?”

Ruth shoved the fabric back into position and turned to her father. Her heart sank as she looked at his face. It was futile; he had definitely seen her looking at something she
knew
he didn’t want her to have. There was no point in pretending otherwise.

And Dr. Henry Porter was just behind her, with a front row seat to her humiliation.

“I burned one of my dresses the other night,” she said. “I stayed up late, re-reading Corinthians, and I caught my sleeve on a candle.”

Her father’s frown deepened. Ruth’s shoulders curled in on themselves. “That’s the second time that’s happened in the past two weeks.”

“I’ve been careless.”

Edward took a step closer, and put his fingers under her chin, raising her head so that they were staring eye-to-eye. He looked less angry than she was expecting. “Wastefulness is a sin, you know,” he reminded her, but he sounded softer, less harsh than she expected.

Was Dr. Porter still there, watching this happening, or had he already walked away, having lost interest in what was, for him, nothing more than casual conversation? And which outcome made her feel worse?

Ruth chased the thought away. She
needed
new fabric. She had to have something to wear.

“I know, sir. I was hoping we might be able to buy some extra fabric, so that I could make myself some—”

The slap came on so strong and fast that she almost didn’t realize it’d happened until the sting of her cheek forced tears into her eyes. She cradled her face, wincing from the pain and the sudden knowledge that everyone around them had gone completely silent.

“Are you out of your mind, girl?” Edward shook her. “You think I have money to throw away because you can’t take care of your things?”

Ruth swallowed, her dry throat clicking. She wondered if everyone in the store could hear it. “No, sir.”

“That’s right! If you want new clothes so badly, you should just go through the church donation box.” He sneered. “And you’re lucky I let you do that. Those clothes are supposed to go to the needy. Someone’s going to go without because of your selfishness.”

The sting in her cheek began to fade, but the pain of the humiliation was still burning strong. She felt like the room had to be a hundred degrees.

“Excuse me, sir,” said a hard voice behind Ruth. It was Dr. Porter. 

He had stayed!

And he had seen
everything
.

Ruth wished the heat would melt her so that she could escape this. She wanted to turn around, push Dr. Porter away, tell him to
go
—but her father was staring through narrowed eyes, his gaze shifting back and forth between them.

Please stop
, she thought desperately.

No one heard her.

“You can’t talk to your daughter that way,” Dr. Porter continued, sounding tight-lipped and angry. She didn’t dare look at him. “She is an adult, and she deserves resp—”

Edward scoffed. “I am fairly certain that how I speak to my own daughter is none of your business.” He grabbed Ruth by the wrist and yanked her toward him. She felt the shock go the whole way up her arm. “Come on, Ruth, we’re leaving.”

He dragged her toward the door, his fingers squeezing her wrist bloodless. She looked over her shoulder at Dr. Porter just before the door slammed behind them.

Her father pulled her along through town. Ruth could feel the stares and glances from neighbors as they passed. He was usually so careful to never show this side of himself outside the four walls of their trailer. 

He had told her over and over again, ever since she was a little girl, that if she could only learn to be
good
, he wouldn’t have to correct her. It had been twenty-two years, and Ruth found she was still learning.

As they approached the bridge, Edward abruptly let her wrist drop. The blood flowed through her veins unhindered, and she winced, cradling her arm to her chest. She quashed the instinct inside of her that insisted she defend herself. She felt torn in half. The pain in her wrist and cheek warred against the memories of worse punishments.

She hadn’t been dutiful enough, had been careless with the things her father bought for her. She’d brought this on herself.

Hadn’t she?

There were bright red fingerprints on her skin. They’d be black by tomorrow, she knew, and she tried to remember where she’d hidden the arnica cream at home.

“I’m sorry,” she said, unprompted. Sometimes, when she apologized without him forcing her to do so, she managed to garner some goodwill. “I shouldn’t have been so thoughtless with my dresses.”

“You think this is just about the dresses?” he whispered harshly, closing in tight. He leaned down so they were practically nose-to-nose. She could smell his sour breath as it wafted against her face. “You are just like your mother. I saw you in there.”

Ruth shrunk away from him. Her mouth pulled into a bemused frown. “But I—I don’t understand ….”

“You think you can just leave me, too? I created you, I raised you.” He grabbed a fistful of her long, brown hair, and she cried out. “Don’t you forget that, next time.”

She tried not to let her confusion show on her face, and instead said, “I won’t, sir. I promise.”

He abruptly let her drop and turned on his heel, stalking across the bridge. She could hear him muttering to himself as he went, calling her vile names. Tears pressed up against the backs of her eyes, and she blinked against them stubbornly, staring down at the ground as she willed them away. She could not cry when he was still so close. Things would only be worse if he saw that.

Ruth let out a shaky breath as he rounded the bend toward Schmidt Park. Besides the bruise forming on her arm, she’d escaped this ordeal practically unscathed—even her cheek didn’t hurt anymore. So why did she still feel like crying?

Heat bloomed on her face. Dr. Porter had seen everything that had happened. Worse, he had tried to intervene. If he hadn’t seen the extreme differences between them before, he certainly would now.

He’d been so kind to her. She thought of the way his blue eyes had lit up when she had asked him to stay, and remembered the compliment he’d paid her. She’d very rarely talked to men—the only man she’d been allowed to socialize with outside her father was Arnold Johnson.

She’d liked it. But now that he’d seen how much Ruth’s father had to correct her, Dr. Porter was not likely to speak to her ever again. For some reason, that made the tears burn hot against her eyelids.

It was embarrassing, to be so helpless, but it was more than that—it was frustrating. For a moment, the blood inside of her coursed fierce and hot. She felt that same all-consuming heat that had bothered her all morning, and then—

Before her eyes, her hands were immersed in flames. She gasped, shocked into stillness as she watched the flames lick at her fingers, until suddenly the fire turned unfriendly. A lick of flame flicked toward her face, as if in invitation. She cried out and rushed down the grass toward the river, stooping to plunge her hands into the water. She drew them out slowly, shaking with a rush of adrenaline and fear. But her skin, though pinker than usual, and sensitive, was not seriously burned.

She shook her hands dry and stood. This had to stop happening. She had to control it.

She had to be better, to live more fully in the image of God. That’s what her father would tell her to do. This was a punishment, and only self-mortification was the cure. She looked up and saw her father growing tinier and tinier in the distance. She took off running after him.

CHAPTER TWO

Henry

Henry was ready to chase after the Bakers the moment the door closed behind them. He didn’t know Ruth very well, but he knew enough to realize that her relationship with her father was by no definition healthy. The man had slapped his daughter, for God’s sake. 

He had taken a vow to do no harm. He figured preventing harm was probably in his bailiwick.

His presence near Ruth had obviously set her father off. Henry wondered if the spooky old Preacher had read his mind. Had Edward Baker been able to see what Henry had himself briefly sensed? It was just a short moment—hardly even a
moment,
really … but there was something about Ruth that made their brief exchange feel like a possibility, a prelude to more.

He couldn’t let her be slapped because of him. He had to fix this.

He’d only made it a step or two toward the door before a girl stepped out from between the aisles. She placed her hands on his chest and dug in her heels to make him stop.

“You can’t,” the girl hissed. People were staring at them, so she dropped her voice and her hands. “You’ll just make things worse for her if you go after her now.”

“Not if I get her away from him.” He tried to slip past her and she blocked his movement. “We can’t just let him treat her like that.”

“Look around you. Everyone else is.”

Henry straightened and looked around the store. The shoppers who lingered on were already turning back to their purchases, perusing the items and asking Mr. Powell behind the counter questions about what he had in stock this week. He blinked. How was this possible? They had all just watched as a young woman was violently dragged out of the store.

He looked down at the girl. The disbelief must have been plain on his face, because she reached out and patted his arm. “Sometimes it’s easier to pretend than it is to be honest about something awful,” she told him.

Anger burned deep in his belly. Maybe it was because he had lived away from Independence Falls for the past few years, studying medicine in Denver. Maybe he’d lost his sense of the small town mentality. He couldn’t pretend that what he’d just witnessed was all right. Moreover, he wouldn’t.

Henry shrugged away from the girl’s blunt comfort and turned back to the fabrics, considering. He didn’t know much about fashion—he could name all 206 bones in the human body, but how to clothe those bones was beyond him. He plucked up the purple fabric Ruth had been looking at and tucked it under his arm. The colors and patterns swam before him, and he hesitated, hand hovering over a pale orange that looked to be the same kind of fabric as the purple.