Sweet Boundless (34 page)

“I’ll give ye the way of it before ye hear it elsewhere.”

Looking into Alan’s face, Quillan felt his stomach tighten. “She’s gone?”

“Nay. But she’s in a bad way.” Alan gripped his shoulder. “Quillan, your wife was attacked last night.”

Quillan jumped up from the barrel, his heart thumping inside. “What?”

“Beaten.”

Quillan gripped the post, wanting to find the lie in Alan’s eyes, but seeing only a deep, pitying sorrow. “Who?”

Alan shook his head. “No one saw for sure. ’Twas dark.”

Quillan spun. He’d thought that himself last night as he made it into Fairplay, how it was a dark and moonless night. If only he’d pressed on without stopping! One night! One night too late. He ran for the livery door, slammed it open with his palms, and pushed through.

The frozen ground crunched beneath his boots, and the air tasted of smoke and slag. He ran to the small house connected to Mae’s, then stopped, feet frozen to the crusty snow beneath his boots. Smoke trailed from the small pipe that vented her stove, and a warm, soft light filled the window, though a curtain blocked his view of the room.

He jammed his fingers into the hair that had grown wild. His beard, too, was shaggy and unkempt. He looked like the animal he’d been the last time he’d seen her, the last time he’d touched her with anger and frustration. He thought he’d changed. But had he? Even if he had, would she care?

Where was he last night when she was beaten? Had he been there to protect her? He remembered how shaken and horrified she’d been by Èmie’s beating. It was so inhuman to violate the natural barrier that protected a woman. What beast . . . He swallowed the rage.

Forcing his feet forward, he climbed the steps to the small stoop outside her door. Before he could decide whether to knock or walk in, the door opened and the light that poured out onto the street was mostly blocked by Mae. Her expression was as militant as her stance, but it changed to surprise mingled with disappointment.

“Well?”

She had a right to ask. Quillan had hardly deported himself in a complimentary manner since Cain’s death. He’d been so wrapped up in his own pain, his own loss. No wonder Mae questioned his intentions. He questioned them himself, but now was not the time. He had to see Carina. His voice was ragged. “How badly is she hurt?”

Mae pursed her lips, eyeing him. “Badly enough to lose your child.”

Quillan’s chest caved in with the breath rushing out. His child? Carina had been with child? He stared past Mae into the room, the realization of her words seeping deeper and deeper. How? From their last encounter? It must be, but . . . now she’d lost the baby. It was worse, far worse than he’d feared. What had the loss of her children done to his mother? To Mrs. Shepard? Would Carina ever be the same?

Why hadn’t he been there? He straightened. “Will she see me?”

“Not much of you. Doc has her dosed up, and she hasn’t wakened.” But Mae moved aside and let him enter. “I’ll be next door.”

Quillan stooped beside the bed that held his wife. Gently, he stretched out his fingers and touched the satiny thickness of her hair. Dried blood crusted the cut on her ear, and a bluish swelling distorted one temple. Her face was pale and still. No blows had hit her face. He could almost imagine she slept naturally, only her breath smelled of laudanum.

Standing, he slipped an arm under her shoulders and another beneath her knees, then lifted her as he slid in to sit on the bed, cradling her against him as he had when he’d pulled her from the mine shaft. He held her to his chest, overwhelmed with anger, grief, and condemnation. “God, oh, God. God!” His whole body tensed as he spoke through clenched teeth.

He raised his face to the ceiling. Somewhere up there, God watched. Cain, too, maybe. The old man had told him God wanted him; God had plans for him. Quillan hadn’t heard, hadn’t wanted to. Is this what it took to drive him to his knees?

He curled Carina into the fold of himself, as though he could shield her now from what she’d already suffered. “God forgive me.” He held her close with one arm and stroked her hair. When she wakened would she despise him? He despised himself.

He would give her one more chance to be free of him.
No!
The thought hammered inside him like a blow, a chastisement. He looked upward. “What? What do you want from me?”

But he knew. Everything. God wanted everything. Quillan buried his lips in Carina’s hair, rocking slowly forward and back. God was unrelenting in His pursuit. It was futile to resist. The fight wasn’t in him anymore.

He felt a presence as real as Carina in his arms.
Lord
. He knew Him. He’d known Him when he was small in the darkness of the shed after the pain. He’d known Him beside his dog’s grave. He’d known without recognizing. He knew Him now.
Lord
.

Tears he didn’t recall shedding dried on his face, and he held Carina, rocking, rocking her. They were alone, but not alone. She knew and trusted God. He’d known Him, too, before he was able to voice it. He’d known but rebelled. The prodigal son who’d thought he knew better how to handle his Father’s affairs.

God . . .
He pressed his lips to Carina’s hair and closed his eyes, praying that the damage he’d done her wasn’t irrevocable.
Let me make
it right. No. Lord, you make it right
. He held Carina close, knowing the grief he’d caused her. Then he thought of the baby. She’d been carrying his child, and he hadn’t known. He pressed her head to his chest. “Forgive me.” He rocked. “Forgive me.”

Carina felt the arms rocking her.
Papa
. She’d crawled into his lap, and he rocked her, soothing the terrible dream.
Now, now, tesora
mia. Don’t be afraid. Papa’s here. Papa’s here
.

She hurt. Her back, her side, her legs, and deep inside her belly. She moaned.
Papa, it hurts
. But she wasn’t a little girl. She was a woman, and she’d lost her child. A wave of pain more piercing than her bodily wounds seized her.

No. Not my baby
. The baby was her hope of winning Quillan’s love. That hope was gone now. But what did she care? He didn’t want her. He didn’t want her! Her eyes were heavy, her mouth thick and dry. If only the clouds would leave her head. She tried to push the dream away, but still the arms rocked. It wasn’t real. The pain was real.

She forced her eyes to open, saw a cotton flannel shirt, felt it against her cheek, heard the beat of a heart faintly in her ear, felt a beard against her forehead. A hand stroked her hair, and she felt safe and cherished. She swallowed, pressed her eyes closed, then murmured, “Alex.”

The rocking stopped. The hand felt heavy on her head. For a long time she stayed still; then she felt herself lifted, laid down, and covered with the warm coverlet. A breath of cold came over her, then ceased with the click of the door. She curled into a ball and slept.

Quillan walked out into the cold, as chilled inside as out.
Alex
. Makepeace? He reeled as he walked stiffly through the darkness. It could be. Makepeace had a table at her restaurant every night. He lived next door. In her room. Which she’d vacated. For him.

Quillan’s boots crunched on the snow. His breath was a white cloud in the lanterns hung along the street, the light pouring out of the windows in golden pools. The music from tinny pianos spilled out as well, but he wasn’t enticed. His thoughts spiraled down. Had he lost her? Would God exact even that for his disobedience?

He went to the livery and found Alan drawing slowly on his pipe and talking to Sam, who sat at his feet looking worried. He was suddenly aware of how alone Alan must be. Every night spent in a tiny room at the back of the horse stalls, his only company the animals men left in his care, and those men like himself who sometimes sat for a chat and asked after him.

Quillan felt his own loneliness growing like a void inside, sucking away his very breath. And it was his own fault. He pulled a stool up to Alan’s rocker, clenched and opened his hands, then dropped them in his lap. He met Alan’s craggy gaze. “Is Carina in love with Alex Makepeace?”

Alan raised hoary brows. “Why, boyo?”

Quillan sat in silence.
Because she spoke his name when I held her
.

“Ye saw her, then?”

“I saw her. She was sleeping. Laudanum. For the pain, I guess.”

“Aye, and the healin’. Sleep is what she needs, and to know you’re home.”

Quillan hung his head. “I’m not sure of that, Alan. She has reason to hate me.” Did Alan know about the baby? He couldn’t bring himself to say it aloud. His child was killed because he failed to protect his wife. Failed in the most basic, the most sacred of his duties.
God!

“Then ye’d best be about your courtin’.”

“Courting? My wife?” It was far too late for that. Maybe God meant to free her after all. Then he remembered the inner chastisement.
No!
It had been almost a blow. He couldn’t think that way. But how? Court his wife? Win her love?

Alan drew on his pipe until the coals in the bowl flashed red. “Aye, courtin’, Quillan. ’Tis time ye learned the art.”

Quillan scowled. Did Alan need to rub his nose in it? No, he hadn’t courted her well. He’d done everything he could to drive her away. Why hadn’t she gone? A thought chilled him. Because of Alex Makepeace? The jealous dragon twisted his gut. He’d let it hurt her before, then drive him away. But not this time. God help him, not this time.

Quillan stood and stalked to his wagon, reaching under the box where he kept most of his personal belongings. Fingering through the stacks of books, he found the one he sought. He’d sworn he’d never open a Bible again, not since he’d left the Shepards’ house fourteen years ago. Not since the enforced readings that had imprisoned Scriptures in his unwilling mind.

But now he dug out Cain’s Bible. He’d protested when D.C. gave it to him, knowing it was a wasted gift and the boy would cherish it far more. Now he blessed D.C.’s decision.
“Daddy would want you to
have it. You never know, Quillan. You might want it someday.”

Quillan recalled the book in Cain’s age-spotted hands. He held it now, not sure why he’d searched it out. Then he opened to a section he’d never read. It hadn’t been part of his expected study. In fact, Leona Shepard had spoken of it once as a dirty book that had no right in the Holy Scriptures at all.

The Song of Solomon
. Quillan looked at the page. He’d never read it, didn’t know why it came to him so strongly now. But he took the book and sat on a barrel in a corner of the livery. He smelled the fodder and the animal scent, felt the breath and heat of the horses and mules.
Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is
better than wine.

I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse . . . I have eaten my
honeycomb with my honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk: eat, O
friends, drink, yea drink abundantly, O beloved
.

Quillan’s breath arrested. These words showed him more than any poetry about the depth of love. A love he’d never sensed before, never embraced even that first time he’d taken Carina into his bed. This was a holy love, a godly love, and he prayed he’d have the chance to show her.

I sleep, but my heart waketh: it is the voice of my beloved that knocketh,
saying, Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled
. Quillan closed his eyes, picturing his wife as he’d seen her under the spring on the mountainside. His heart surged painfully.
Open to me,
Carina
. And he heard another voice inside him.
Open to me, my son.
My son
.

NINETEEN

What hateful seed germinates in the heart of men to find release through their tongues and fill the air with venom?

—Carina

“HOW BAD IS IT, Papa?”

“Not so bad, tesora.”

“It feels bad, Papa. It hurts.”

“Life hurts. You have to be strong. My little tigre.”

“It’s too hard. Papa? Papa?”

But he was gone, and only the pain remained. If she could open her eyes, would the pain leave her? Carina tried, but sleep would not release her. It was better. In sleep there was forgetfulness. Oblivion. Yes . . . oblivion.

At the first hint of dawn, Quillan sat up in the livery, where he’d lain unsleeping near the potbellied stove that gave the animals some relief from the cold and turned Alan’s room into an oven. It didn’t seem enough to keep the chill from Alan’s joints as he lay huddled under the blanket, breathing in staggered gasps. At least the old man had found sleep.

Quillan’s mind had whirled between condemnation and determination. Yes, he blamed himself, as Carina must also. But that wouldn’t change what happened. Nothing would change that. Not even God. But God could bring good of it. And the words he’d read in Solomon’s book had been both a balm and a promise.

Quillan no longer felt the presence of the Lord. He could almost convince himself he’d imagined it, conjured it out of his need, his dismay, his horror over what had happened to Carina. But the words he’d read stuck in his mind, and he felt such an urging it compelled him. Cain’s voice in his mind again.
“If you knew God, you’ d understand
those urgings.”