The Visions of Ransom Lake (11 page)

“
She twists my patience sometimes, I’ll tell you that for sure,” Jerome muttered, sighing with relief himself.

“
You two are dear friends to defend me so. But she is right. If he hadn’t been trying to—”Vaden began.

“
Hello, all,” Yvonne greeted upon entering from the back room. She took one look at her younger sister and sighed sympathetically. “Vay, why don’t you go on back and sit down for a spell? I’ll watch the store now.”

Vaden
did
feel the need to escape, so she thanked Yvonne for offering and turned to leave.

“
Thank you for standing up for me, Raylin. And you too, Mr. Clayton.”

“
Jerome,” he corrected.

Vaden forced a friendly smile. “And do thank your mother for the taffy. I’m sure it’ll make me feel all the better,” she lied.

Vaden went directly to the room where Ransom Lake slept. She sat down promptly in the chair next to the bed and began wringing her hands.

“
Oh, please wake up. Open those stormy eyes of yours and comfort me with knowing you’re all right,” she whispered. She covered her mouth with one hand as she tried to extinguish the sobs wanting release. After a moment, she drew in a deep breath and tried to calm herself once more. “You’ll be fine,” she whispered, taking the man’s large hand in her own. “You’ll be fine.”

She raised his hand, studying it for a moment. She caressed the calluses formed by hard labor on his palms and thought of their picking a certain, and very beloved, golden pear from an upper tree branch. This was his left hand, and she knew he had picked the pear with it. She lifted his hand to her face, laying her cheek on its back as she thought of the way he had held the lines to his team that first day she had seen him. She studied the small gold band on his little finger. It was simple, just a small band of gold. Being the curious cat Vaden was, it suddenly piqued her interest. Ransom Lake, for all other outward appearances, did not seem the type of man for jewelry. A split second of anxiety coursed through her veins as she thought it might be a wedding band. Perhaps he had been or, worse yet, was married! That thought quickly eliminated itself, for it would have been on his ring finger were that the case. At least it seemed a logical assumption to Vaden.

Then, looking about to make certain no one else had entered the room, she tugged at the ring on Ransom Lake’s finger, finding it a difficult task to remove the band. After a moment of tugging and twisting—during which she watched his face closely, should he choose that particular moment to awaken—the ring slipped off. Vaden laid the small band in the palm of her hand to study it. It was definitely a woman’s ring, she determined, for it was small and reminded her of her own mother’s wedding band. As she looked inside the small golden loop, she could see the remnants of an inscription. But, try as she might, she could not make out all the letters, though she did discern what seemed to be a name.

“
D-A-R-L-I-N…Darlin?” she whispered to herself. Could it have been
Darling
? she wondered. She looked at the expressionless features of the man lying before her. “Darling?” she whispered again. Could Ransom Lake’s hermithood have been sparked by the loss of a wife? It bothered her to think of Ransom Lake’s having been married to another woman, to think of him loving another woman, holding her in his arms, giving her his heart. But it would be a possible explanation for his cringing from society as he appeared to be doing.

Gently, she returned the ring to his finger and then bent until her lips were close to his ear. She could smell the lingering aroma of lye soap on his skin. No doubt Myra had bathed his neck and arms when the doctor had been attending to him.

Quietly, she whispered, “Who is the Darling who owned the ring, Ransom Lake?” He remained motionless. “Who is the Darling? Are you married? Were you married? Is the Darling your wife?”

Vaden startled violently when from the lips of the sleeping man broke the word, “No.” It was only a breath, but very distinct.

Placing a calming hand to her bosom to try and steady her breathing again, she asked, “Mr. Lake? Are you conscious? Are you awake?”

There came no answer, and the man remained unmoved. His eyelids did not flinch; his breathing remained as steady as it had been before. Vaden shook her head. Had he heard all she had said to him? Was his mind alert though he remained unconscious outwardly? Vaden sat beside him for a long while, waiting for something, anything—any sign that he would be well.

When Myra called for her to come join her in the mercantile, Vaden first went to the wardrobe where her aunt had asked her to hang Mr. Lake’s trousers and shirt after they had been laundered. She had noticed a loose button at the collar when he had first been lying on the bed, his blood soaking the cloth of the shirt at the shoulder. How odd she should notice a loose button at that particular moment. Quickly she pulled the button from the shirt and dropped it into her apron pocket. The least she could do was sew the button back on the shirt properly, she thought. But as the day wore into night, Vaden found herself finally tucking the button from Ransom Lake’s shirt into the boot under her bed.

“
I’m a thief, Vonnie,” she confessed to her sleeping sister as they lay in their beds in the dark of the night. She wondered about the ring and the woman who had worn it. Who was she? What had she meant to Ransom Lake? Her mind hurt from the wondering, but eventually she was able to sleep until morning.



Vaden wrung the water from the cloth and into the basin. As she moved to place the cloth on Ransom Lake’s forehead, she paused, thinking to herself that, although he was not conscious, it might be soothing to his body were she to gently wipe his face and neck with the cloth. After having done so, she realized it could have done little good for him because so much of his face was covered with his heavy beard.

Yvonne came into the room and asked, “How is he? Still unconscious? It’s been two days. How much longer does Doctor Sullivan think it will be?”

Vaden shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.” She studied the man’s face for a moment. “I wonder what he looks like under all those whiskers,” she whispered to her sister.

She had been wondering that same thing since the day she had first seen him. But now, with him before her for two days, unmoving and seemingly unaware of what was going on around him, Vaden’s curiosity was enormous. She’d had hours to stare at him, study him, imagine what he might look like, and it was voraciously eating at her.

“
Probably worse,” Yvonne answered quietly. “I swear, I sit here anticipating his eyes just popping open and that odd color of them stopping my heart cold. His gaze is so…so…”

“
Mesmerizing,” Vaden stated.

“
Terrifying is more like it.”

“
But…I do wonder, Vonnie. What
does
he really look like? It’s impossible to tell through that forest of facial hair.” Vaden tried to bury the thought springing forcefully to her mind. But it was too intriguing, too easy to do with Ransom Lake in his present state. Quickly she stood up and went to the dressing table nearby. “Hurry, Vonnie. Boil some water for me, and get a couple of extra towels.”

“
Vaden,” Yvonne warned. “You’re not actually planning to—”

“
How do we ever expect the man to recover unless he’s completely comfortable?” Vaden asked as she gathered her uncle’s spare shaving soap and mug, brush, and razor from the table.

“
Vaden! You can’t! You can’t just—”

“
Hurry, Vonnie, before he wakes up. Aren’t you just the least bit curious too?”

Yvonne drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. “You take the punishment, Vaden. I’ll not be on the receiving end of his wrath when he wakes up.”

“
I will,” Vaden promised. “I will. It will be worth anything he throws at me.”

Some thirty minutes later, the two sisters sat, astounded as they stared down at the freshly shaven and astonishingly handsome face of Ransom Lake.

“
Oh, my…oh, my!” breathed Yvonne. “You never would’ve known that he looked so…so…that he looked like that!”

“
I knew he would,” Vaden admitted as she meticulously studied him.

He was far and away more attractive than even she had imagined, however. His jaw was strong and square, a slight cleft in his chin. His cheekbones showed strength, and the set of his lips was perfect. He was, without a hint of doubt, the most physically attractive man she had ever imagined. A delightful warmth washed over her, and she felt rather breathless as she gazed at him. Ransom Lake was magnificent! She began to sighed, awed by the perfect, rugged beauty of the man. She trembled, fearful of his suddenly opening his eyes, for she was sure the fully revealed magnificence of his face combined with the intensity of his uniquely colored eyes would melt her into oblivion. She reached out, smoothing the hair from his forehead. “All he needs now is a barber’s trim.”

Yvonne shook her head emphatically. “No, Vaden. He’ll probably devour us as it is! No.”

Vaden smiled as she twisted a long ebony strand of his hair about her index finger. “It would be too awkward anyway,” she conceded. She immediately released the strand of his hair when a frown suddenly puckered his handsome brow.

“
Oh, my!” Yvonne gasped. “He’s waking up!”

But Vaden shook her head. “No, he’s just…Yvonne. Look.”

Vaden watched as a single tear escaped from the corner of his right eye and traveled slowly down his temple.

The crimson of the blood seemed to stain every vision in Ransom Lake’s mind. “Not again,” the unconscious man’s soul pled with his memory. But it came. The all too familiar vision, accompanied by the soul-wrenching emotional pain, played itself out again in the mind of Ransom Lake as he lay unconscious. The smell was there—the smell of wounded flesh, of blood, of death, of fire, and of guilt. He tried to shout in anguish, but no sound could escape his throat.

“
Is he in pain, do you think?” Yvonne asked.

Something in Vaden’s young heart whispered to her then, and she answered, “Not from the wound, I think.” She reached out and caught his tear on her finger, placing it gently on her own cheek where her own tears had all too recently been. “Do you think,” she asked Yvonne, “do you think he’s like Sleeping Beauty, Vonnie? Only a prince instead of a princess? Do you think he’d wake up and fall in love with me if I kissed him?”

Yvonne moaned and rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Really, Vaden. You do beat anything else in the world.” And standing up, having tired of her sister’s infatuation with the unconscious man before her, she left the room.

Vaden giggled. It was ever so fun to try to provoke a reaction from Yvonne. She enjoyed it immensely. Yvonne did have such difficulty most of the time trying to discern whether Vaden was in earnest or jest. As another solitary tear escaped Ransom Lake’s eye, Vaden’s smile faded. She reached out, smoothing the frown from his strong brow gently with her fingertips, and the thought struck her again—only not as an irritant directed at Yvonne this time.

“
Would you, I wonder?” she whispered softly. “Would it wake you, Ransom Lake?” Then simply being in the room alone with the man wove a spell of emotional intrigue over her. “
‘’Tis Heaven’s sweet when lips are meet, a nectar most divine,’
” she whispered to herself, studying the heaven formed features of the man who lay before her. “‘
Two hearts inspire a passion’s fire, resplendent kiss…is thine
.’”

Taking a deep breath in searching for her courage, Vaden bent and placed a gentle yet lingering kiss on the quiet lips of Ransom Lake. His lips were unexpectedly soft. She had expected them to be rough somehow. And though there seemed to be nothing conscious about him, Vaden perceived an enchantingly peculiar warmth permeate her being at the wonderful sensation of her lips pressed to his. An excited flutter caused her to shiver suddenly, and she broke from him, studying his unflinching features for a moment. He exhibited no reaction of any sort, and she sighed, somehow relieved. No doubt the man would be furious when he awoke to find himself shaven. It would have been all the worse were he to have awakened to find himself the unwilling recipient of such a gesture. With a heavy sigh and a warmth in her heart and on her lips the like she had never experienced, Vaden whispered, “‘
Resplendent kiss…is thine,’
” and left the man to his rest.

“
Is he still sleeping?” Myra asked as Vaden entered the mercantile.

“
I’m afraid so,” Vaden answered, suddenly blushing at the realization of what she had just done. She scolded herself for taking such a liberty as to kiss an unconscious man—to be so forthright in initiating the kissing of a man at all, for that matter. Yet she smiled too as the feel of his lips lingered in her mind. What a delightful secret she held!

“
Well, the Wimber children are here for a story as ya can see, sweet pea.” Myra pointed to the group of children sitting quietly in one corner. “You go on ahead and give them a tale. I’m runnin’ out to the shed to fetch your uncle, so mind the store while you’re at it, all right?”

As the minutes passed and Vaden wove her tale of heroes and princesses, the children were enthralled, as always. Vaden loved to see the expressions that crossed their young faces during a storytelling. She’d always held a secreted pride in her uncanny ability to weave a wondrous tale. She smiled, delighted by their now enraptured expressions as she continued with her story.