Jed's Sweet Revenge (15 page)

Nothing could be more violent or more magnificent than the thunderstorms that crashed into the Georgia coasts every August. Ordinarily, Thena loved the wild lightning that streaked between the sky and the ocean; she loved to stand at the edge of the forest and let the wind tear at her hair and body. It made her feel closer to the world, and in the aftermath she was somehow new again.

But tonight’s storm was an enemy that seemed to know that she was too depressed and tired to resist its battering force. Seeing Jed in Dundee that afternoon, hurting him and being hurt so badly in return, was all she could think about. The storm frightened the island horses, and Thena looked out her living room window to find the small herd gathered in the woods just beyond her yard. Cendrillon had led them to a spot she considered safer than any other.

The sight made Thena’s chest tighten with love for them and fear for their future, both immediate and distant. Carrying a big lantern, she went outside in the cool, lashing rain and walked among the herd. Most of the horses knew her and let her touch their heads with a reassuring, gentle hand. The others, their eyes wide under soaked forelocks, retreated a little into the woods and watched her anxiously.
She stood for a long time, her head bowed, leaning against Cendrillon’s warm shoulder.

Thena smelled the pungent warning in the air a few seconds before the lightning struck. She grasped Cendrillon’s mane and screamed just as the bolt roared down from the night sky and split a huge live oak two dozen yards away. Thena stared in horror as the oak ripped from crown to roots. The torn halves fell in opposite directions, crushing the smaller trees and the palms.

Weak with fear, Thena woozily held the lantern up. She gasped and ran forward as the light revealed a gray yearling trapped under the limbs of the smoking, devastated tree. “Easy,
ma petite,”
she soothed, stroking the colt’s straining neck. He didn’t seem to be hurt, just pinned. But his legs thrashed in wild resistance, and she knew it was simply a matter of time until he did hurt himself.

Thena studied the tree anxiously. The limbs were nearly a foot in diameter. She had nothing but an old, dull ax in the barn, so she couldn’t cut them. Thena ran to get an old buggy collar and logging chains her grandfather had brought to the island. When she returned, she slid the collar over Cendrillon’s steaming, wet neck and locked the heavy chains in place on either side.

It seemed to Thena that hours passed before she finally got the chains fastened around the tree. The gray colt lay still for periods, petrified by the strange activity, then thrashed dangerously until he was too tired to continue.

Nearly exhausted herself, breathing raggedly, water streaming down her face, Thena went to Cendrillon’s head and wound a hand in the little mare’s mane. “Pull,
chérie
, pull!” Cendrillon’s small hooves dug into the thick, sandy soil. Her neck bowed down and her haunches flexed with tremendous effort. The tree limbs slid nearly a foot, skimming lightly from the colt’s barrel to his hindquarters. He squealed
in new terror and began to fight, hanging a hind foot in the smaller limbs.

“Quiet, stay quiet!” Thena called to him. She unbuckled the chains so that Cendrillon was free, then ran to the colt’s side and knelt down, trying to ease his leg out of the tangled branches. “We’re going to get you out of this, somehow! There’s got to be a way—”

A tremendous clap of thunder nearly deafened her. The colt lurched up on his front legs and fell back. Thena wrapped both arms around his neck and tried to hold him down. The wind gusted sharply, and Thena cringed as a two-hundred-foot pine tree toppled beyond the far side of the barn.

It was difficult to think rationally amidst such awesome violence. Suddenly Thena cried out at the thought of what Sarah Gregg must have gone through, the overwhelming fear and desperation as she fought to save her Arabians from the hurricane almost forty-five years ago. H. Wilkens had found her pinned under a tree much like this one, her neck broken. Thena’s heart pounded with dread while she looked at deep, dancing shadows as the oaks flung themselves back and forth in the lantern light. “Sarah!” she screamed as if begging for help. “Sarah!”

The wind howled. Thena pressed her face into the colt’s soggy gray mane and cupped her hands over his eyes to shield them from the rain a little. The dogs crept up and huddled by her again; Cendrillon stood in the edge of the lantern light, snorting and jumping every time a limb cracked somewhere in the woods.

A few minutes later, Thena heard a repetitive splashing sound through the din. She squinted into the darkness with alarm, watching Cendrillon twist about and stare toward the sound too. The dogs barked lustily, but without malice. Thena turned to look at them in bewilderment, amazed at the welcoming
tone of their voices. When she looked back her breath caught in her throat.

A figure in a yellow, hooded rain slicker appeared in the lantern light. Even before the hood fell back, Thena recognized Jed’s tense face in the shadows. A deep, serene conviction flowed through her, even though she knew it was highly imaginative. But why else would he be here at night, in a storm? Sarah had drawn her grandson home.

“Jedidiah!” He knelt in the rain beside her, his eyes frozen on her face. He grabbed her shoulders with rough hands.

“Are you hurt?” Jed yelled.

She shook her head. “But Cendrillon can’t pull this limb off the colt! She needs help!”

His hands left her shoulders, cupped her face, smoothed her matted hair back, and traced the contours of her wet skin as if he were convincing himself that she was truly all right. He pulled the rain slicker off and draped it around her shoulders, then he walked quickly to Cendrillon. Thena stroked the colt’s head as Jed turned the mare around and reattached the chains.

This time, as the mare pulled, Jed pulled too. Thena scrambled up and tugged the branches away from the colt’s hind leg. The big limbs over his body moved by inches, but they moved. And five minutes later, the colt leapt to his feet, free. He galloped vigorously into the woods.

Thena staggered to Cendrillon, feeling giddy, and helped Jed remove the logging chains and collar. Then she slapped the shaking mare on the shoulder and yelled, “Follow your friend and keep him out of trouble!” Cendrillon disappeared into the inky forest at a trot, her white tail streaming out behind her with ghostly luminescence.

Thena faced Jed, her chest heaving, and the shock of his sudden appearance began to register. His rich brown hair was plastered to his head and he was
breathing just as hard as she was. They stared at each other for several seconds, no words capable of asking or answering all the questions that hung in the air. Finally he bent and got the lantern. By some silent signal, they walked to the porch, where the dogs had already retreated now that the excitement was over.

Or was it over? The storm around them was beginning to fade, but there were other tempests to consider. Thena sat down on the top of the porch steps. Jed sat down beside her, and she gazed in amazement at the dirty mess that had once been his very nice pair of western boots. His soaked slacks and sports shirt clung to the athletic contours of his body.

He ran his hands across his hair and frowned at her frank scrutiny of his ruined appearance. “No class,” he said tersely. “Just like you told me.”

Thena faced forward and lowered her head into her hands. “What kind of crazy man did you hire to bring you to Sancia at night, in a storm?”

“Farlo. Who else? But the storm hadn’t started when we left Dundee. Once he left me at your dock, it took almost an hour to walk here.”

“Thank you for what you did just now.” Thena fumbled to make sense out of all that had happened. “You helped save a horse you plan to turn into dog food.”

“Oh, hell.” The exasperation in his voice hinted that she knew better than to believe what he’d said earlier about the horses.

Thena held out her hands and looked at him in angry supplication. “Then why are you here? What do you want now?”

His mouth thinned in dismay. “It’s my island, and I reckon I can visit it anytime I want to.”

“In the dark, in a storm?”

Her haggling destroyed his patience and accomplished the nearly impossible. It made him yell. “Yes,
dammit, in the dark and in a storm!” He reached into a back pocket on his slacks and withdrew a document, which he presented to her stiffly. “The deed,” he rasped. “Take it. This heap of shells and everything on it isn’t mine anymore. It’s yours.”

Thena stared at him in speechless shock. Her face pale, her stomach tingling with a disturbing hint that she might cry, Thena took the paper and glanced at it. True. Unbelievable, but true. Sancia was hers.

Her voice sounded small and fractured. “Why, Jedidiah?” She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t think.

“I want you to understand something,” he answered fiercely. Her gaze came up and absorbed the pride and dignity in his expression. “I do have class. I can recognize somethin’ beautiful when I see it. I’ve seen it in Wyoming, out there in mountains that make a man want to cry because they’re so pretty, and in prairies that go on forever until you think that the sky is the only thing that brings ’em to an end. And I’ve seen what’s beautiful here. I don’t understand this kind of beauty, but I know it’s special. I think you know that I couldn’t ever have gone through with those godawful things I said today. I can’t hurt this place … and I can’t … hurt you.”

He stood and went down the porch steps, then turned to glare up at her. The rain had become a slow drizzle that misted his face and hair. “I’m a damn fool, and you can enjoy that fact after I leave. I’ve got some camping gear on the dock. I’ll stay there tonight and Farlo’ll be back for me in the mornin’.” When she started to speak, he held up a warning hand. “If you’ve got thanks, hold ’em. I didn’t expect ’em when I decided to give you the island. It’s always belonged to you. I just made it official.” He paused, looking even more upset. “And if you’ve got more ugly names to call me, hold those too. I’ve had enough to last me a long time.”

Thena pounded her knees with both fists. “You
pick the worst time to become a talkative man!” She stood and hurried down the steps, and before he knew what was happening, she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him, hugged him as if she’d never let him go. Jed’s hand rose uncertainly to touch her shoulders.

“You don’t have to do anything in return,” he groaned, trying to push her away. “Don’t latch on to me out of gratitude.”

“You stubborn cowboy, I’m latching on to you because I’ve missed you and because I love you!” Thena tilted her head back and looked at him through a haze of bittersweet anxiety. “I wanted you to come back. I prayed that you’d come back. And it had nothing to do with the island.” She shook his shoulders. “It had to do with me, Jedidiah. You and I are two of a kind.”

His arms moved slowly around her back, while he absorbed the soft, silver light in her eyes. “You love me?” he asked numbly.

Unable to tell whether he found that good or bad at this point, she tried to sound practical about it. “The immediate chemical reaction can be explained as a routine, though perhaps unusually fervent, mating desire, but the spiritual bond that grew between us is something unique.” She hesitated as she saw the gleaming intensity rising in his eyes, not quite sure what he meant to do about her revelation. “Do you think you want that kind of bond, Jedidiah? The powerful, permanent kind?”

Jed’s next words, simple and heartfelt, left her gazing at him in adoring wonder. “I think,” he murmured, “that it’s my destiny to walk where you walk and love what you love for the rest of my life.”

Dizzy with emotion, Thena closed her eyes. She had both Sancia and Jed. It was incredible. Jed touched his mouth to hers, and she stiffened with fear. Of course it was incredible, Thena thought suddenly. And impossible. She knew how to love,
but she didn’t know how to make love, and nothing could overcome that inadequacy. Thena arched her head back, away from his kiss, and looked up to find his face gone ashen.

“What am I doin’ wrong this time?” he asked gruffly. “Just tell me. I never had this trouble before, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna ruin what you feel for me.”

Thena’s heart nearly burst with devotion. There wasn’t another man in the world who would assume that her awkwardness was due to some mistake on his part. “Let’s get out of the rain, Jedidiah.” She pushed herself from his embrace and went back to the porch, feeling flushed and anxious. He followed quickly, his face set in a worried frown.

“You can stay in the upstairs bedroom,” she said with as much lightness as she could manage. Thena opened the screen door and stepped inside. He came after her, his concerned gaze scouring her face. “Come along. I’ll give you those baggy old clothes you found so funny before. After we’re both dry, I’ll fix some hot tea—”

“Are you too much of a coward to just tell me the truth?” His voice was low and firm. “We just said we love each other. Now you’re actin’ strange again. You owe me the truth.”

Thena laughed shakily as she turned to face him. “That I secretly like the way you look in my father’s old clothes? All right, I admit it. The way the calves of your hairy legs show under the rolled-up pants—”

“Thena, for God’s sake, if you don’t want to be physical with me, just tell me why and be done with it.”

She backed away, shaking her head. “Do we have to talk about that right now? What about romance? Friendship—”

“What about fear,” he interjected. “You’re plain scared of me, and it hurts me right down where I live. I want to make love to you, every time you touch me I imagine how it’d be, every time you look at me,
every time I get near you and catch the scent of your hair and skin.… I think about you at night. I dream about holding you and wake up so ready it makes me want to burst.”

“Oh, Jedidiah, don’t,” she whispered. “I don’t deserve that kind of desire.” But the floods of sensation provoked by his words told her that she desperately wanted him to desire her that way, and she wished with every part of her soul that she knew how to make his dreams come true.