The Haunting of Autumn Lake (18 page)

“Mother!” Autumn exclaimed, though her blush was too revealing and she knew it.

“Oh, don’t ‘Mother’ me, Autumn Lake,” Vaden giggled. “Your eyes were like two shining stars when you and Gentry arrived home from your ‘walk’ yesterday, sweet pea.” Again Autumn blushed. “What?” Vaden asked then. “You don’t think your daddy and I are smart enough to know that you are entirely smitten with Mr. Gentry James?”

“Mother!” Autumn scolded, glancing around to see if anybody was within listening range.

But Vaden Lake simply arched her lovely brows in a knowing expression and said, “And as for Mr. Gentry James’s feelings where a certain young lady is concerned—”

“No.
I
knew right away,” Vaden corrected. “Your daddy, however, simply knew that I was gonna scramble up his life somehow, that’s all.” She caressed Autumn’s cheek with one soft hand. “So you go on and get your hopes up, my angel. Hope is what carries us through life. All right?”

Autumn nodded and began to unpin her hair. “But he’s awful handsome, Mama,” she sighed. “Awful handsome. It just doesn’t seem real to think he could…do you know what I mean?”

But Vaden Lake laughed. “Oh, darling…if there’s a woman in all the world who knows what it’s like to be in love with a sinfully handsome man…it’s me!”

Autumn smiled. Her mother was right. Gentry was sinfully handsome, just like Ransom Lake. All at once, Autumn could see herself in her mother’s eyes—imagine Vaden so twisted up over Ransom Lake that she could hardly see straight. Somehow her mother had managed to win her daddy’s heart, even for his sinful good looks, so why couldn’t she win Gentry’s?

She tried to force the sound of Riley’s voice from her mind—tried to shut out the feel of his hands on her and his threats. And though she couldn’t change what had happened, she could avoid Riley, and she could keep a secret as well. She could handle all the nausea in her stomach—and she knew it would return. She could keep her mouth shut about what had happened, protect her family and Gentry from not only harm but worry. It was harvest season, and everyone had too many other things to worry about. As long as she didn’t mention what had happened, her family and Gentry would be safe. And as long as she was never alone in town again, she would be safe from him as well.

Therefore, Autumn decided to keep her misery, her humiliation, and the disgust she felt with herself a secret. Everyone owned scars inflicted by life. She thought of her mother’s traumatic experience of being made to believe she’d been buried alive. If her mother could endure such a terrifying ordeal, then Autumn could endure the threats Riley Wimber had made—to her virtue and her family’s well-being.

With a sigh of determination to be strong, Autumn braided her hair and pinched her cheeks, and when her face and eyes were no longer red from crying, she accepted another peppermint coin candy from her mother, and the two walked arm in arm toward the wagon. All would be well.

And yet as Gentry helped her into the back of the wagon to head for home, Autumn found herself peering down the alleyway between the general store and the tailor shop. A wave of nausea and trepidation washed over her, but she swallowed the nausea, shooed away the trepidation, and simply settled into the wagon bed.

As she looked across the bed of the wagon to see Gentry smiling at her, she couldn’t help but smile in return.
Those dimples!
she thought. How could Riley Wimber’s loathsome behavior and threats continue to haunt her mind when Gentry was in her line of vision?

Autumn thought for a moment that maybe the answer to the incident in the alley that she knew would haunt her dreams was sitting there across from her in the wagon. All she had to do was to see Gentry’s smile—to know he was near—and Riley Wimber and all his threats and foul kisses could not harm her.

“I’m lookin’ forward to the harvest moon,” Gentry said as Autumn’s father slapped the lines at the back of the team and the wagon lurched forward.

“Are you?” Autumn asked, smiling at him.

“Of course,” he said, his smile broadening. “After all…you’ll be there, won’t you?” he flirted.

Autumn smiled, giggled a little. Yep. Gentry James—he’d left her breathless with just one sentence. What could poison like Riley Wimber do to her when a remedy like Gentry James was near to cure anything venomous?

She thought then of how wonderful Gentry’s kiss had been the day before. Riley Wimber hadn’t kissed her; he’d pillaged her mouth! Therefore, Autumn consciously decided to forget what Riley had done to her in the alley. She would simply gaze at Gentry—bathe in the memory of his hot, moist, truly affectionate kiss. And maybe—if heaven truly cared for her—maybe Gentry would kiss her again, perhaps that very night. Perhaps whatever residual haunting Riley’s actions may do to her soul would be vanquished by Gentry. Just one of his fascinating and blissful kisses would heal her—especially if it lingered—beneath the enchantment of the harvest moon.

Chapter Ten

“Oh, Ransom, this is just the perfect place! Just the perfect place,” Vaden exclaimed. Turning, eyes as bright as candle flames, she asked Autumn, “Isn’t this the perfect spot, Autumn?”

Autumn smiled and answered, “Oh, yes! And it’s right near Jethro, Clarence, and Clementine!’ Autumn and her mother embraced, giggling together with excitement. As she glanced over to see her daddy and Gentry exchange chuckles, shaking their heads with amusement at the goings-on of women, she sighed. Each time she looked at Gentry—each time he smiled—she could almost forget what had happened in town earlier in the day. Each time her stomach would churn at the thought of Riley Wimber’s mouth to hers—each time fear would leap in her bosom—Autumn found that all she needed to do was to gaze at Gentry a moment, and her soul would settle a bit.

“So let’s spread out the old picnic quilt right here, Ransom,” Vaden instructed, pointing to an area where the ground was clear of pumpkins and waning pumpkin vines. “Just right here in front of Jethro.”

“All right, honey,” Ransom said, still smiling. “Wanna help me here a minute, Gentry?”

“You bet,” Gentry answered.

Autumn sighed as she watched Gentry help her daddy spread the old picnic quilt over the ground. It was going to be a beautiful moonrise—simply beautiful. She winced a moment as Riley Wimber’s image popped into the forefront of her mind. But when she looked up, it was to see Gentry grin and wink at her.

“So you all do this every year?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah!” Ransom assured him. “Every year since Vaden and I got married…if the weather’s holdin’, that is, and if the clouds aren’t tryin’ to ruin it.”

“I’ve never even seen the harvest moon,” Gentry admitted aloud. Of course, Autumn already knew the sad fact, but her mother’s gasp would’ve made a body think he’d just admitted to murder.

Oh, how she wished she could simply throw herself into his warm embrace! Somehow Autumn knew that, were she bound in Gentry’s arms, all the ugliness she’d endured in Riley Wimber’s would disappear. Autumn glanced to her mother and, for the first time in her entire life, realized that there was someone else she’d rather watch the rising of the harvest moon with—someone other than her beloved parents. The thought disturbed her. She’d always watched the harvest moon rise with her family. Every year the Lakes would haul the old picnic quilt and a basket of pumpkin cookies out to the edge of the apple orchard or into the best clearing in the pumpkin patch and watch the beautiful golden moon of autumn rise. It had been a favorite event for Autumn Lake for as far back as she could remember. To Autumn, the family harvest moon outing was, in many ways, as wonderful as Christmas Eve. Thus, as she inwardly scolded herself for having such a selfish thought as wishing she could linger with only Gentry beneath the large, warm “pumpkin in the sky” (as her mother liked to call it), Autumn realized the time had come to admit something to herself. The time had arrived for her to admit to herself that she was thoroughly in love with Gentry. She didn’t just like him or favor him above any other man she’d ever known. She wasn’t just infatuated by his charming ways and unfairly good looks. Autumn had fallen in love with Gentry the moment she’d looked into the deep blue of his eyes as his head lay in her lap when he’d fallen from his horse that first day.

Autumn’s mother had always claimed that she herself had known she’d love Ransom Lake the moment their eyes had met in town on Vaden’s first day there. Though Autumn had wholeheartedly believed her mother’s story when she’d been a child, growing up had tainted her child’s faith, and she had, at times, wondered if her mother were exaggerating about the way she felt when she first saw Handsome Ransom Lake.

But now—now Autumn knew the truth—and with eternal certainty. Just as Vaden Valmont had known she loved Ransom Lake the moment she’d seen him, Autumn Lake had known Gentry James would own her heart the moment he’d fallen off his horse and looked up at her.

It was frightening to admit. For even though Gentry had her kissed the day before—more than kissed her, made love to her, Autumn realized as she reflected again on their moments in the bridge—it was so implausible that he would love her. Men were different than women, after all—creatures of physical strength and drive—while women were far more prone to lead with their heart rather than their fist.

Autumn was in love with Gentry! After a mere few weeks and one rainy half an hour spent kissing in the old covered bridge, she was admitting to herself that she was desperately in love with him! No other reason could account for her wishing she were alone with him at that moment in the pumpkin patch. No other reason could account for the fact that she often thought she would die when spring came and Gentry rode away from her.

As she watched her mother place the basket of pumpkin cookies on the picnic quilt, watched her father head over to Jethro to check on his ripening progress, watched Gentry striding toward her, his handsome face so perfectly embellished with two charming dimples, she knew she could not live without him. That somehow she must make him love her.

“You’re not smilin’, punkin,” Gentry commented as he approached. “I thought sure you’d be grinnin’ as wide as a jack-of-the-lantern by now. After all, I hear this is near your favorite night of the year.”

“Well, the first year Daddy owned the pumpkin fields, he put Clarence out here to discourage the crows, of course,” Autumn began to explain. “But Mama thought he looked so awful lonesome out here all by himself that she made Clementine to keep him company.” Autumn sighed, adding, “They’re in love, you know.”

“Who?” Gentry asked. “You mean the scarecrows?”

“Of course,” Autumn assured him with a giggle. She felt better; just being close to him always made her feel better. “Can’t you see it in their button eyes? They’re so in love!”

“Are they now?” Gentry chuckled as he studied her a moment.

“Of course they are!” Autumn assured him. The twinkle was returning to her eyes, and he was glad. It had disappeared while they’d all been in town, and he’d been worried over it ever since. Furthermore, he could see by the glances Ransom and Vaden had been exchanging all afternoon that they were concerned as well. But as she sighed and gazed up at the two scarecrows, the twinkle did begin to spark in her eyes.

“Sometimes I come out here and tie their hands together with a hair ribbon…just so they can touch,” she told him. Gentry smiled, for it was obvious Autumn was being swept away into one of her own stories. He loved when she got all dreamy-eyed and lost in a tale she was telling him.

“I know that most of the time, they’re happy just to be dancin’ in the cool breeze together…side by side. But they want to touch more than they are able.” She giggled, smiled at him with eyes as bright as diamonds, and said, “Sometimes I even reach up there and help them to kiss. It seems only natural, after all.”

“Of course it does,” Gentry chuckled. “When ya like somebody as much as these two obviously like each other…you want to be touchin’ them all the time…and kissin’ them as often as you can. Ain’t that right?”

Autumn’s breathing stopped for a moment. She wasn’t sure if Gentry were talking about Clarence and Clementine or something else.

“That’s very true,” she managed to respond.

“So tell me some more about these scarecrow lovers of yours,” he prodded.

Autumn smiled and nodded. “Well, when the moon is full, as it will be tonight,” she began, “I think they hop down off their posts. Clarence helps Clementine hop down, of course. And then…then they run off through the pumpkin patch…free as the breeze that carries them along. I think they run on over to the apple orchard and climb up high into Daddy’s biggest tree and pick the apples the pickers missed up there. Then they sit down on a big limb and eat apples until their little straw hearts are content.”